What changed between the plenary report and the adopted text

40. Calls for a revision of the exclusion criteria in procurement processes, enabling them to better address specific sectoral risks related to fraud, corruption and criminal infiltration; stresses that different sectors require separate tailored exclusion criteria, reflecting their specific vulnerabilities; firmly believes that contracting authorities should be empowered to adapt procurement procedures to combat and address criminal activities; highlights that in order to promote greater efficiency and simplification, the provisions relating to grounds for exclusion should be streamlined through an exhaustive list and a clear distinction between mandatory grounds for exclusion, intended to protect the public interest, and optional grounds for exclusion, intended to protect the interests of the contracting authorities or entities; adds that any economic operator that breaches its obligations under applicable labour and environmental laws pursuant to Article 18(2) of Directive 2014/24/EU should effectively be excluded from the public procurement process in question;

41. Encourages greater cross-border cooperation in public procurement, where it offers clear benefits, such as in large-scale projects, in order to enhance efficiency and cohesion within the EU internal market; supports interoperable digital infrastructure that enables procurement data and procedures to be shared seamlessly across Member States, as this would reduce barriers and enhance market cohesion, benefiting suppliers of all sizes across the EU;

42. Calls for full use to be made of all the flexibility provided under the GPA in EU public procurement law, at least for sub-central contracting, with the aim of achieving a substantive simplification of procurement procedures; highlights that the GPA allows for significantly greater flexibility and more streamlined procedural options concerning the choice and design of procurement processes; calls on the Commission to assess the possibility of allowing small contracting authorities to use simplified procedures, making use of the flexibility provided in Directives 2014/25/EU and 2014/23/EU, in order to address their limited resources and expertise and to reduce unnecessary administrative burdens, thereby enabling them to fulfil their tasks more efficiently;

43. Emphasises that various sector-specific public procurement rules are fragmented and may be difficult to implement for both businesses and local governments;

44. Calls on the Commission to review and assess sector-specific procurement rules and streamline them to reduce unnecessary burdens on contracting authorities while ensuring transparency, efficiency, legal certainty and flexibility; calls for sectoral legislation to remain harmonised with the overall procurement frameworks and to remain restricted to technical specifications;

45. Requests the establishment of uniform non-binding guidelines, standardised monitoring and reporting mechanisms, procedural guarantees, independent oversight bodies with sufficient powers and effective enforcement and compliance tools to promote legal certainty, fair competition, and consistency across public procurement in the EU, without restricting contracting authorities’ discretion; highlights the need for support for contracting authorities, especially those with limited administrative and economic resources in enforcement and to ensure that contractors comply with the agreed contractual obligations; emphasises the importance of the principle of proportionality, meaning that the contracting authority’s decisions, as well as the requirements and conditions set in a tender, must be aligned with the nature and scope of the contract being procured; urges the Commission to clarify this concept to incentivise the use of criteria other than price only;

46. Notes that greater integration of the public procurement market is crucial to achieving the EU’s strategic goals, provided that this fully respects Member States’ competence to define their own strategic priorities; underlines that any efforts to standardise procurement procedures must be guided by the principle of subsidiarity and preserve national flexibility;

47. Stresses that SMEs’ efforts to explore other Member States’ markets should be supported; calls for the sharing of best practice across the EU and the simplification of cross-border procurement procedures; calls on the Member States to encourage business participation in cross-border public procurement by refraining from using language criteria to decline bids in tender procedures;

48. Calls on the Commission to streamline administrative processes as much as possible to ease burdens, refine selection criteria for effective procurement and boost administrative capabilities; believes that standardised criteria make for more accessible and attractive contracts for SMEs, which is essential to foster wider participation and drive innovation in the sector; strongly recommends, therefore, the issuance of standardised criteria in the form of non-binding Commission guidelines;

49. Recommends the introduction of strengthened mechanisms for transparency and oversight in public procurement by integrating advanced data analytics and AI technologies into the procurement process to detect potential non-compliance, irregularities, fraud, national security risks and corruption in real-time; encourages the Commission, in this context, to support the development of a data-driven risk analytics platform connected with supplier registries and both EU and national debarment databases within the PPDS, including the integration of procurement, company and sanctions data to enable proactive fraud detection and integrity monitoring;

50. Considers that the introduction of an EU-wide mechanism that ensures cross-border information sharing for contracting authorities on the economic operators that have been excluded from procurement markets and the duration of their exclusion, in line with Article 57 of Directive 2014/24/EU, would facilitate enforcement, simplify procedures, safeguard public funds, safeguard a level playing field in the internal market and reinforce the security and integrity of critical public infrastructure and services; notes that cross-border information sharing regarding a certain trader being excluded in one Member State is not a prerequisite for that trader’s exclusion in another Member State;

51. Urges the Commission to study the feasibility of an EU-wide register of declarations of interest in the field of public procurement, taking into account the value of contracts, allowing for the identification of personal or professional links between contracting authorities and successful tenderers, in order to prevent situations of conflict of interest that could affect the integrity of the process and to ensure the existence of robust whistleblowing mechanisms;

52. Considers that further simplification and standardisation of public procurement practices are needed; supports the introduction, where appropriate, of standard contract section templates across the Member States in order to create greater uniformity in tendering procedures, reduce administrative burdens and ensure legal clarity for contracting authorities and economic operators, while maintaining flexibility for market-driven solutions; notes, moreover, that the introduction of standard contract section templates across the Member States would also facilitate the integration of contract data into digital platforms, enabling easier tracking and comparison; considers that such standardisation contributes significantly to administrative efficiency and the reduction of transaction costs, as it enables contracting authorities to streamline the preparation of tender documents and economic operators to reuse elements of previous tenders, particularly when participating in multiple procurement procedures; points to the use of standard models, which should allow shorter and more consistent tender documents;

53. Welcomes the priority given by the Commission to reducing the burden on businesses of legally mandated reporting requirements by 25 % and 35 % for SMEs; calls for this priority to be implemented across all sectors and calls for the upcoming public procurement review to be assessed on this basis;

54. Calls on the Commission, the Member States and contracting authorities to make full use of the available tools such as the EU’s trade defence toolbox, to prevent unfair competition from non-EU countries that discriminate against EU countries’ participation in their public procurement processes, and to apply a strict principle of reciprocity with the effective use of the EU’s International Procurement Instrument, especially when it comes to access to strategic sectors of the EU public procurement market; recalls that the EU may restrict access to its public procurement markets in response to breaches of international trade rules, including increases in customs duties that are incompatible with WTO rules; calls, furthermore, for decisive action through the Foreign Subsidies Regulation; highlights, moreover, the possibilities offered by Regulation (EU) 2023/2675 on the protection of the EU and its Member States from economic coercion by third countries; stresses that the procedures followed before the implementation of rebalancing measures are too slow; calls on the Commission and the Council to allow procedures enabling a quicker reaction; recalls that non-EU countries that are not part of the GPA or have not concluded international agreements with the EU guaranteeing equal and reciprocal access to public procurement cannot claim equal treatment in the area of public procurement, as clarified by CJEU case-law (Case C-652/22);

55. Recalls that the conditions set out in ILO Convention No 94 on Labour Clauses should be respected, and considers that countries that do not comply with them should not be able to access EU public procurement processes;

56. Notes that a significant proportion of contracts in most Member States are awarded based on the lowest price bid; highlights the need to ensure that non-EU companies do not gain an unfair advantage in procurement procedures through direct or indirect state subsidies, thereby distorting fair competition within the internal market; urges the Commission and the Member States to take decisive action against non-EU entities that exploit such subsidies to undercut prices or dominate tenders in a manner inconsistent with EU competition rules; recommends establishing clear and transparent rules for the exclusion of non-EU entities, as well as EU-based companies whose non-EU subcontractors have repeatedly breached EU law; further calls for convergence among Member States on the rules governing the participation of non-EU bidders in public tenders, particularly in the case of projects financed with European funds;

57. Underlines that abnormally low tenders, especially from non-EU bidders, may compromise the effective execution of public contracts, endanger quality standards, and pose risks to national security, particularly in the context of critical infrastructure; calls for stronger measures to detect and address such bids, including through independent cost assessments and clear obligations for contracting authorities to reject offers where the justification for the unusually low price is insufficient or unconvincing; calls, in this context, on the Commission to put forward a clear and harmonised methodology for assessing the notion of ‘abnormally low price’, in order to provide contracting authorities with greater legal certainty and practical guidance when evaluating tenders;

59. Calls for the continued application of derogations for the outermost regions given the specific challenges these territories face; recognises, furthermore, the unique circumstances of communities residing in EU border regions that engage in regular cross-border economic and social exchange with neighbouring non-EU countries;

60. Seeks to ensure that public procurement incorporates mechanisms that support regional economic resilience, the creation of quality local jobs and the sustainability of local economies, contributing to a more balanced distribution of economic activity between urban and non-urban areas; underlines, in this context, the role of agricultural producers and their supply chains, as well as the paramount role of services of general economic interest; invites the Commission to assess the recommendation contained in the Draghi report to provide contracting authorities with the option of setting an explicit minimum quota for selected locally produced goods in public procurement where appropriate and feasible; emphasises that public procurement practices should foster economic growth without unduly favouring specific sectors or regions, while recognising the importance of strengthening the ability of contracting authorities to give greater weight to social and sustainability criteria, including environmental and climate-related considerations, where they deem it appropriate;

61. Recognises the specific characteristics and strategic role of public procurement in bolstering EU food security and resilience, and acknowledges the need to make better use of sustainability and climate-related criteria, support EU farmers, and promote healthier eating habits as well as sustainable and healthy food policies;

62. Supports increased flexibility in public-public partnerships, enabling public authorities to work together more effectively to enhance service delivery and reduce costs; calls on the Member States to consider developing a public-private partnership and dialogue in public procurement in order to improve the efficiency of processes and the cooperation between public authorities and businesses; recommends revising the current directive’s definition of public-public cooperation to acknowledge such cooperation as any contracts or arrangements made between two or more contracting authorities; calls on the Commission to consider exempting cooperation between public authorities (public-public cooperation) for the purpose of efficient task fulfilment from the scope of the procurement directives, without further restrictive conditions;

63. Stresses that the development and use of trustworthy, high-quality and transparent sustainability labels and certifications help contracting authorities operationalise sustainability objectives, thus reducing the administrative burden and the need for in-depth technical assessments; calls on the Commission to promote and further develop such labels at EU level, ensuring their credibility and usability across sectors;

64. Observes that contracting authorities are already engaged in sustainable and climate-friendly procurement, guided by comprehensive sustainability regulations at the EU, national and regional levels;

65. Underlines, in the light of CJEU case-law (including Case C-395/18), that contracting authorities are entitled to include requirements based on national labour law in procurement documentation, such as binding collective agreements, minimum employment standards, equal pay provisions, and other relevant social criteria; welcomes the clarification by the CJEU that the social and environmental obligations in the Horizontal Social Clause are ‘a cardinal value with which the Member States must ensure compliance’; calls on the Commission to develop guidance and a legal framework, including clarification of the subject matter and its practical application, that ensures legal certainty and empowers contracting authorities – within their own discretion – to apply such criteria without facing disproportionate legal risks;

66. Recognises the significant potential of socially responsible public procurement (SRPP) in promoting decent work, social inclusion and sustainable development; encourages contracting authorities to systematically integrate social criteria in public procurement procedures, while ensuring economic feasibility, flexibility and subsidiarity; calls on the Commission to assess the inclusion of social criteria in the procurement procedures and provide a clear legal and policy framework and practical guidance, including legal clarity and examples of good practices, to enable effective and legally sound implementation of SRPP by contracting authorities; recognises that including social clauses, such as requirements related to working conditions, collective bargaining and respect for labour rights, can significantly enhance the quality and reliability of public procurement outcomes; calls on the Commission to clarify in the revision that the requirements set out in Article 18(2) of Directive 2014/24/EU, relating to environmental, social and labour law, are binding;

67. Believes that public procurement procedures should encourage and reward innovative and sustainable solutions that can stimulate economic development; highlights the importance of introducing and implementing sustainability criteria across Member States in a way that reflects current EU legislation; calls on the Commission in the context of the forthcoming fitness check on EU public procurement legislation to assess the establishment of a sector-specific sustainability criteria toolbox comprising model award and technical criteria, verification methodologies and contractual provisions, with a view to facilitating the progressive adoption of more sustainable procurement practices, offering clarity for contracting authorities while allowing them to tailor requirements to specific sectors and local economic capacities; requests that the Commission examine how sustainability-related aspects can be better integrated when applying the principle of the most economically advantageous tender, in order to foster innovation and efficient resource use; calls on the Commission to develop a set of criteria with the aim of fostering innovation in sustainable technologies and increasing the EU’s competitiveness in future lead markets; believes that strengthening the market for secondary materials should form part of this approach; stresses in this context that the development of a toolbox should be contingent on demonstrable evidence that (a) it does not oblige contracting authorities or contracting entities to incur disproportionate costs or result in incompatibilities or technical difficulties, (b) it takes into account the life cycle, diversity and availability of relevant products and services, and adheres to the principle of technological neutrality, and (c) it preserves fair competition;

68. Recommends the implementation of strategic procurement models that prioritise the interests of the EU and the Member States, as well as long-term value and resilience over short-term cost reductions, and offer lead market opportunities for products respecting the EU’s objectives, particularly in strategic sectors;

71. Stresses the specific challenges faced by electricity grid operators, with increased delivery times and costs; calls for public procurement procedures for electricity grid operators to be simplified and their flexibility and efficiency ensured; advocates for more consistency between EU regulations impacting the public procurement of electricity grids;

72. Underlines the importance of unlocking investments in the market for public procurement and concessions, and calls on the Commission to examine whether the current framework for the duration of concession contracts adequately reflects post-award investments by concessionaires, and to consider whether greater flexibility would help incentivise such investments;

73. Stresses the need to avoid unnecessary administrative burdens for public buyers and economic operators, including SMEs and micro-enterprises; underlines that, in revising EU public procurement legislation, the need to reduce complexity and cut red tape should be considered at all times in order not to hinder the participation of economic operators in public procurement; requests that the Commission, when assessing options for introducing new criteria in public procurement, ensure that particular attention is given to the stage at which such requirements are inserted within the procurement process; underlines that special attention should be paid to whether these criteria are included in the award criteria or at earlier stages of the procurement documents, ensuring legal clarity and practical feasibility for both contracting authorities and economic operators;

74. Supports the modernisation of procurement criteria to reflect advancements in technology and security, ensuring that new procurement frameworks allow for agile responses to changing economic and geopolitical landscapes while maintaining the autonomy of Member States over managing their procurement policies; notes that EU competitiveness is built together with social and environmental standards in the internal market; stresses that the future frameworks for public procurement should enhance these strengths, not diminish them, in order to strengthen the position of EU actors in public procurement bids;

75. Highlights the importance of the Net Zero Industry Act as an example of resilience criteria related to security of supply, quality jobs, contribution to the EU’s industrial leadership and competitiveness, adherence to cybersecurity standards and reducing dependency on a single non-EU country that does not participate in international procurement agreements;

76. Supports the further digitalisation of public procurement processes, with a view to reducing administrative burdens, improving efficiency and competitiveness, enhancing transparency and facilitating access for SMEs and cross-border bidders, while ensuring compliance with security standards;

77. Calls for enhanced support mechanisms for very small entities, SMEs, start-ups and social economy actors to enable them to effectively compete in public tenders, including technical assistance programmes, and capacity building for SMEs, start-ups and social enterprises; believes that more guidance and support for SMEs is crucial to advance their participation in public procurement; underlines the need to reduce bureaucratic constraints that disproportionately affect participation by SMEs, start-ups and scale-ups, and for proper impact assessments and a mandatory SME and start-up test by the Commission on any and all new rules; highlights the effectiveness of dialogue initiatives in helping SMEs gain better knowledge of public procurement principles, while allowing public procurers to collect information to design more balanced criteria and reduce administrative burdens; supports, where appropriate, the widespread use of sourcing practices by public buyers prior to the design of calls for tender, as well as limits on excessive financial capacity and proof-of-past-performance requirements; signals the need to support SMEs in identifying partners;

78. Calls for the urgent simplification of selection criteria, and in that context, also calls on the Commission to explore whether the creation of an EU-level digital database of pre-qualified SMEs and smaller actors could help streamline procedures and enhance access to public tenders; notes the potential for accreditation systems to be used to determine companies’ technical and financial capacity and verify their professional integrity prior to the tender process and that professional integrity criteria should encompass their track record of compliance with applicable labour, human rights and environmental laws; underlines that effective interoperability and cross-border accessibility of these registers across Member States could essentially strengthen transparency, safeguard public funds, support the internal market and reinforce the security and integrity of critical public infrastructure and services;

80. Recommends that the procurement framework should allow bidders and contracting authorities to submit missing evidence at a later stage in the procedure, simplifying and accelerating procurement processes, for example, through an expansion of Article 56(3) of Directive 2014/24/EU; recommends that the participation of start-ups and SMEs be promoted by adapting rigid reference requirements that disproportionately hinder newly-established companies; calls for, where appropriate, greater flexibility in qualification criteria to ensure fair access for start-ups to procurement opportunities while maintaining transparency and competition; underlines that flexibility should be considered when requesting track records of contracts from SMEs;

81. Calls on the Commission to ensure that public procurement processes are made more accessible and transparent by providing easily understandable summary tables or overviews of public tenders, which clearly outline recommended technical specifications and requirements of the procured work or service; requests that the Commission particularly consider enterprises with less experience, which should use the tools to better understand and interpret the procurement documents;

82. Reiterates that equitable access to public procurement procedures necessitates a simplification and clarification of the rules for contracting authorities;

83. Highlights that experience with public contracts, such as construction projects, shows that allowing alternative proposals (variant bids) helps contracting authorities procure services more innovatively, efficiently and cost-effectively; emphasises that innovative solutions are more easily integrated into procurement when variant bids are generally allowed and that in order to effectively incorporate entrepreneurial know-how in the awarding of public contracts, alternative proposals (variant bids) should generally be allowed unless the contracting authority specifically decides to exclude them (opt-out); calls upon the Commission to examine the permissibility of alternative proposals (variant bids) pursuant to Article 45(1) of Directive 2014/24/EU;

84. Calls on the Commission to ensure the ‘once only’ principle is applied consistently at all levels of administration in public procurement, so that, in order to reduce administrative burdens, bidders only have to provide certain standard information to the authorities and administrations once; recognises that allowing bidders to use self-declarations of compliance instead of submitting numerous administrative documents at the initial stage can often reduce burdens and increase efficiency; calls on the Commission to identify where such practices could be applied appropriately, while ensuring legal clarity and safeguards;

85. Is of the opinion that reserved contracts for certain services are a good practice that supports the social economy; suggests that preference could be given to SMEs and innovative market operators in the event of equivalent offers or could be implemented through reserved contracts or a reserved part of the contract performance; stresses in that context the effectiveness of reserved contracts in supporting the employment of persons with disabilities through public procurement, while noting that there is still room for improvement in their implementation;

86. Recognises that while subcontracting allows for greater flexibility, access to specialised skills, and cost savings, it can also bring potential risks such as weakened accountability, heightened risk of labour rights violations and obstacles to effective enforcement; calls on the Commission to assess the impact of public contracts being performed mainly by the successful tenderer’s direct workers and recommends that public procurement rules encourage companies to have sufficient in-house staff to implement the projects for which they are awarded public contracts; calls on the Commission, in order to end abusive subcontracting and to protect workers’ rights, to strengthen transparency and accountability throughout the supply chain, and to consider introducing a well-defined regime for joint and several liability of economic operators and subcontractors and for ensuring transparency regarding the subcontractors involved and the share of the contract that the contractor intends to subcontract;

87. Supports contract pricing flexibility through the extension of the maximum duration of framework agreements for contracting authorities, the introduction of provisions that allow price adjustments in response to disproportionate cost increases that the bidder could not reasonably have anticipated, such as inflation, material or energy cost increases and changes in labour laws, ensuring contract viability without imposing financial strain on public authorities, and the extension of the negotiated procedure as the principle for contracts subsequent to a framework agreement;

88. Notes that the rules on innovation procurement remain underused; calls for evaluation of the need to establish additional special procurement rules for scientific research and innovation projects, recognising their critical role in driving economic and technological progress, while ensuring efficient use of public resources; signals the need for additional and solid provisions protecting the intellectual property rights of bidders, including during the tendering process;

89. Believes that the professionalisation of public purchasers should be part of improving public procurement methods within the EU; welcomes national initiatives aiming at helping public purchasers to familiarise themselves with the current legal framework and concepts such as defining the subject matter and designing appropriate selection and award criteria; asks the Commission to develop and promote similar programmes at EU level with a focus on making better use of non-price criteria by establishing ‘ready-to-use’ environmental and social criteria;

90. Highlights the crucial contribution of non-profit organisations, churches and social enterprises in public procurement all around Europe, noting their expertise, strong local connections, and demonstrated capacity to deliver high-quality services; stresses the importance of maintaining and promoting reserved contracts as a powerful instrument to ensure that public procurement supports broader societal objectives, the social economy and the diversity of actors involved; calls, therefore, for strengthening the existing possibility for Member States and contracting authorities to reserve participation in public procurement procedures specifically to actors operating on a non-profit basis; calls on the Commission to reconsider the three-year limit and the obligation not to have provided these services within the previous three years under Article 77 of Directive 2014/24/EU;

91. Calls for a better use of the option laid down in Article 71(3) of Directive 2014/24/EU of enabling direct payment to subcontractors; calls on the Member States to promote the transparency of payments by public authorities to contractors and sub-contractors, and of payments by the contractor to its sub-contractors or suppliers;

92. Calls on the Commission to update its tools for monitoring competition in public procurement; considers that by refining the methodologies and technologies for market analysis, incorporating advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence, the EU should strive to promote a procurement environment that ensures greater competitiveness, fairness, transparency, strategic value and equity; believes such measures can contribute to a clearer understanding of the issue of low competition in public procurement and support the development of new proposals to simplify access to tenders for enterprises;

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93. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.