European Commission Seeks to Harmonize Public Procurement

The European Commission plans to significantly harmonize the rules governing how public authorities across the European Union purchase goods and services. This is evident from a leaked draft of the proposed public procurement law, which was obtained exclusively by the Euractiv website.

Currently, this legislation within the EU is fragmented and divided among three main legal frameworks: the directive on concession contracts, the directive on public procurement, and the directive on entities operating in specific sectors. The Commission plans to completely repeal all three existing regulations and replace them with a single comprehensive one.

A key change is that the new legislation will take the form of a regulation. This means it will take effect immediately upon approval by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. The previous three acts were merely directives, which gave individual countries leeway for their own interpretation during the adoption process, leading to significant differences in rules among member states.

This proposal comes at a highly anticipated time, as an intense political debate is underway in the EU over whether binding rules should be introduced to give preference to European products, known as the "Buying European" initiative.

The European Commission is set to formally submit and present the revision of public procurement rules on 9 September.

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