The proposed Regulation would introduce significant changes to the way goods, works and services are purchased through public procurement across the EU. Aims include simplification, greater flexibility and coherence of rules, more strategic procurement, improved economic security and strategic autonomy, and improved data and digital tools. The proposal includes a more liberalised approach to negotiation, mandatory quality-weighted award criteria, and entirely new policy chapters on security/resilience and European preference.

We look at key ways the proposed Regulation would reform the existing regime.

Legal form: A single, directly applicable Regulation

The proposal would repeal and replace the Public Contracts Directive, the Utilities Directive, and the Concessions Directive, as well as amending several Regulations which span several sectors. 

This is a fundamental legal change. An EU Regulation would apply directly across the EU as part of national law of each Member State. The public procurement Regulations in Ireland transposing the 2014 Directives would need to be repealed once any new EU Regulation applies.

It is also notable that the Regulation would unify public-sector procurement, utilities procurement and concessions in one instrument. It would establish a single set of rules on public contracts for works, supplies or services and on concessions for works or services. It would also create a framework for a common digital ecosystem.  

Thresholds: Consolidated but broadly preserved in amount

The proposal sets thresholds of €5,404,000 for works contracts and concessions, €140,000 for supplies/services awarded by central government authorities, €216,000 for supplies/services awarded by sub-central authorities, €432,000 for supplies/services awarded by entities in the utilities sectors, and €750,000 for social, health and educational service contracts. These broadly align with current thresholds.

The revision mechanism tied to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement is also carried over largely unchanged, with the Commission required to verify every two years that thresholds correspond to GPA levels.

Exclusion grounds: Consolidated into a single set

The proposal consolidates exclusion grounds that are currently fragmented across several sectoral acts into a single coherent framework in the Regulation. Seven mandatory exclusion grounds tied to serious criminal offences are retained in their original acts but mirrored in the Regulation, and two further exclusion grounds currently found in the Shipments of Waste Regulation and the Ecodesign Regulation are removed from those acts and placed in the Regulation’s exclusion grounds.

New qualification machinery restricts public buyers in asking for information that can already be determined from existing national databases and also provides for an electronic eligibility service.

Selection criteria: Largely replicated but eased in some respects

The proposal would bring selection criteria within two categories: technical and professional ability, and legal, economic and financial standing. Selection criteria must now be related and proportionate to the complexity of and the risks associated with the subject-matter of the contract. It is also significant that minimum yearly turnover requirements are reduced and the requirement around prior experience is softened. A new provision allows it to be assumed that an economic operator does not possess the required professional abilities where it has been made aware by appropriate means that the economic operator presents a security concern for a Member State or the Union.

Award criteria: “Best price-quality ratio”

In the open and dynamic procedures, public buyers will evaluate tenders according to a “best price-quality ratio”,  applying minimum quality weighting, save for limited derogations. Quality criteria must represent at least 30% of total points awarded, rising to at least 50% for labour-intensive contracts. Public buyers will have discretion over which quality criteria to apply. Public buyers may also establish a fixed price on the basis of which economic operators would compete on quality criteria only.

This can be contrasted with the current regime, which gives contracting authorities/entities a choice to award contracts based on price alone or on the “most economically advantageous tender”, without any mandated minimum quality weighting. This is one of the most significant substantive changes and represents a shift to a mandatory, EU-wide quality-weighted standard.

Procurement procedures: Comprehensive change

The proposal replaces current procedures with three new procedures (open, dynamic, and innovation) along with a special procedure for specific circumstances. General principles relating to the conduct of negotiations are brought together in a new provision applying across the procedures as relevant. Under the current regime, a buyer must justify recourse to a negotiated procedure by reference to defined trigger conditions (such as complexity, inability to define specifications, prior failed procedure), whereas under the proposal a buyer could elect to negotiate within the open or dynamic procedure with no substantive justification required.

We look at the main features of the procedure in the overview below.

Open Procedure (Articles 34 – 35)

• Availability: Available to public buyers irrespective of the type of works, supplies or services needed.
• Launch: Public buyers make their procurement needs known through a ‘public summary of competition’ setting out whether and which selection criteria apply, and whether they intend to negotiate.
• Who may participate: Any interested economic operator may express interest and submit a ‘first tender’ via the ‘electronic eligibility service’.
• Selection criteria: May be conducted with or without selection criteria (as specified in the public summary of competition).
• Negotiation: May be conducted with or without negotiation (as specified in the public summary of competition). 
• Award basis: Best price-quality ratio under Article 98, applied to first tenders or final tenders following negotiation.
• Timelines: Minimum 20-day period for expressions of interest with first tenders.
  

Dynamic Procedure (Articles 36 – 40)

• Availability: Available to public buyers irrespective of the type of works, supplies or services needed.
• Launch: Public buyers publish a ‘public summary of competition’ indicating the duration of validity of the procedure.
• Who may participate: Economic operators can request to join the procedure at any point during its validity. Only economic operators that have joined are invited to express interest, submit a tender or participate in negotiations for individual contracts.
• Selection criteria: May be conducted with (Article 39) or without (Article 38) selection criteria (as specified in the public summary of competition). In the latter case, where there are more than five expressions of interest, a lower number can be selected via the electronic eligibility service by means of random indiscriminate algorithmic determination.
• Negotiation: May be conducted with or without negotiation (as specified in the public summary of competition). Individual call-offs may proceed by tender or by first tender followed by negotiation.
• Award basis: Best price-quality ratio under Article 98, applied to first tenders or final tenders following negotiation.
• Timelines: Minimum 25-day period before first individual-contract invitation.
  

Innovation Procedure (Articles 41 – 45)

• Availability: Available to public buyers to address a ‘societal challenge’ for which they have not identified an existing appropriate or desirable solution, to be developed by the successful tenderer(s) in the course of the procedure.
• Launch: Preceded by a mandatory market consultation of at least two months (unless a shorter period is justified), followed by a ‘public summary of competition’ setting out specific information. The procedure has five phases: (i) determination of the societal challenge and design of the value assessment framework, (ii) launch, (iii) selection of innovative solution proposals, (iv) testing, validation and assessment of innovative solution proposals, and (v) public contract award.
• Who may participate: Any economic operator may submit an innovative solution proposal in response to the ‘public summary of competition’.
• Selection criteria: Where the public buyer choses to use selection criteria, it is applied at the first phase of a two-phase eligibility assessment for the selection of innovative solution proposals. The second phase of the eligibility assessment involves selection according to the criteria of the value assessment framework and the evaluation score, based on innovation potential, feasibility, scalability (rather than a conventional price-quality tender evaluation).
• Negotiation: Economic operators found eligible are invited to a testing, validation and assessment phase. If positively assessed, they are invited to negotiate on deployment of the innovative solution proposal.
• Award basis: In case of a successful negotiation with an economic operator, the public buyer awards the contract for deployment of the solution proposal directly to that economic operator or, in the case of several successful solutions, to those economic operators. Awards may take place for up to five years after publication of the positive decision.
• Timelines: Testing/validation/assessment phase capped at two years unless duly justified.

Special Procedure (Articles 46 – 48)

• Availability: Available only in the specific cases and circumstances listed in Articles 47 and 48 (includes sole-source situations, limited additional deliveries from an existing supplier, commodity-market purchases, certain hospitality and administrative service contracts, and emergencies or declared crises).
• Launch: No competitive process or prior publication of tender information is required. The public buyer instead issues a direct request (invitation to negotiate, request to tender, or request to deliver against invoice) to one or more operators.
• Who may participate: Only the operator(s) the public buyer chooses to approach directly, subject to the applicable ground being made out.
• Selection criteria: Not applicable.
• Negotiation: The direct request itself may take the form of an invitation to negotiate.
• Award basis: Governed by non-discrimination, equal treatment and transparency principles, taking due account of the specific needs and circumstances of the case.
• Timelines: Additional-deliveries ground capped at two years. Emergency ground is deemed satisfied for as long as a recognised EU crisis, health-emergency or internal-market-emergency mechanism remains active.

Contract modification thresholds

The area of contract modification is commercially important. The current and proposed regimes work on a similar principle: small, immaterial changes to a contract are allowed without a new tender process, but larger or more fundamental changes are not, unless a specific ground applies.

The proposal simplifies the de minimis threshold into one flat figure for every type of contract: 15% of the initial contract value, assessed cumulatively across successive modifications.

The proposal permits broadly similar categories of substantial modification to the current regime, but does not carry over the current 50% price cap on those categories. Instead, it uses 50% of the initial estimated contract value as a transparency trigger: a modification below the 50% mark must be publicly disclosed within 20 days after it is made, while a modification above 50% must be publicly disclosed in advance, before it takes effect (subject to a narrow emergency carve-out).

Strategic procurement: Horizontal chapters replace sectoral provisions

The proposal transfers horizontal “what to buy” provisions into dedicated chapters structured around green, social, security, and resilience priorities. Article 5 requires that public procurement shall be guided by the strategic policy objectives of the Union, in particular in relation to competitiveness and innovation, environmental and climate objectives, and social justice/fair working conditions/inclusive society.

By contrast, the current Directives contain principles of non-discrimination, equal treatment and proportionality and permit (while not mandating) environmental, social and innovation considerations to be factored into technical specifications, selection criteria or award criteria, largely at the discretion of the contracting authority. The proposal converts many of these permissive tools into a structured, mandatory framework of strategic policy objectives with dedicated chapters that public buyers must take into account.

Empowering provisions for green public procurement

Five sectoral instruments currently contain separate empowering provisions to establish green public procurement requirements in certain areas. The proposal repeals these and replaces them with a single horizontal empowerment to allow the Commission to make certain environmental requirements mandatory for public buyers under specified circumstances. There are consequential amendments to the Ecodesign Regulation, the Net Zero Industry Regulation, the Batteries Regulation, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, and the Energy Efficiency Directive.

By contrast, green criteria under the current regime are largely optional tools available to contracting authorities under technical specifications, selection and award criteria provisions.

New chapters: Security/resilience and “European preference”

A new chapter on “security and resilience” is intended to clarify how security considerations are to be considered in public procurement. It provides a non-exhaustive list of security and public safety interests to be considered and regulates the termination of contracts and the exclusion of operators during contract implementation for security reasons. It is also intended to ensure compliance with cybersecurity requirements and defines resilience and security of supply for critical entities and infrastructures.

A new chapter on “European preference” defines “covered economic operators, goods, services and works” by reference to whether they originate from a WTO GPA party or a third country with a bilateral/multilateral trade agreement with the Union. It sets out a European preference mechanism for tenders, which would allow public buyers to apply European preference requirements, including the possibility of restricting or rejecting certain economic operators and tenders. It also provides a framework for the Commission to make European preference mandatory in sector-specific EU legal acts, while laying down exceptions where public buyers may decide not to apply European preference.

These provisions go considerably further than current law, which is largely confined to a non-discrimination guarantee for GPA and other treaty-partner tenderers.

Governance and digital ecosystem

The proposal introduces provisions on national public procurement data spaces and a centrally established Public Procurement Data Space, which would aggregate procurement information from national data spaces for Union-level monitoring. It introduces governance tools, including a designated national coordinating authority and measures to professionalise public procurement.

Remedies regime

The proposal would not amend the Remedies regime (which includes provisions on standing to challenge, time periods, and standstill). Enforcement remains regulated at a national level in accordance with the existing Remedies Directive and Regulations.

Next steps

The European Commission invites views on the draft legislation until 11 November 2026. Feedback received will be published and summarised and presented to the European Parliament and Council of the EU with the aim of feeding into the legislative debate. The proposed Regulation will be negotiated by the European Parliament and the Council before its adoption and entry into force.  The proposal provides for deferred application two years after it enters into force.

Once a new Regulation is in force, it will require a significant revision of public buyers’ policies and procedures, as well as bidders’ tendering strategies and practices. It will also likely lead to a new body of interpretative case law, as many well-trodden provisions in the existing regime are replaced by markedly new approaches.