AEGIS Europe Feedback on the Revision of the Public Procurement Directives
AEGIS Europe welcomes the opportunity to provide its input to the revision of the Public Procurement Directives.
We are an industry alliance bringing together more than 30 European manufacturing associations representative of the whole value chain, from commodities down to consumer end products.
Public procurement is a strategic tool that can be used to strengthen Europe’s industrial base, competitiveness, and strategic autonomy. Its revision should ensure strong enforcement and alignment with EU industrial, trade, and climate policies to prevent price-driven practices that allow unfairly subsidised or non-market products to undercut European production. If effectively structured, public procurement can incentivise high environmental and social standards and contribute to strategic autonomy.
Below, you may find some of our suggestions, based on our members’ input:
• Exception on international rules: Article 20, Directive 2014/25/EU allows the derogation of EU public procurement rules ‘pursuant to international rules’ (e.g. through an international agreement). This has created a route for the undisputable circumvention of EU public procurement rules and unfair competition, especially through China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects in certain Member States (e.g. Hungary). AEGIS Europe calls for the removal of Article 20, which threatens the general interest of European Union. The uniform application of EU procurement rules across all contracting entities will then be ensured, and vital EU public interest objectives such as transparency and non-discrimination will be upheld.
• Systematic exclusion of Foreign Bidders in strategic sectors. Clear and more uniform rules for the participation of Foreign Bidders – understood as bidders from countries which are not a party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) or other trade agreements with the EU, i.e. in line with EU international obligations – must be ensured to provide legal certainty to bidders and contracting entities alike. As the EU has exclusive competence on this matter, we call on the systematic exclusion of these bidders for public procurement procedures related to strategic sectors, especially for State-owned economic operators since they are of direct concern for the security of the Union.
• A long-term vision for European content: In the longer term, EU content must become the cornerstone of a credible public procurement policy. Public procurement should aim for a high share of European-based production, with limited exemptions where products are unavailable.
• Definition and enforcement of “Made in Europe”. The concept of “Made in Europe” is central to the effectiveness of EU preference in public procurement, yet it currently lacks a clear and robust definition. Experience from trade and climate policies show that origin-based criteria can be easily circumvented if they rely on formalistic or minimal transformation rules. Public procurement should therefore rely on substantive production criteria rather than formal origin labels.
• Strategic alignment with the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR): The current Regulation allows a suspicious bidder already targeted by an in-depth investigation of the European Commission that has not yet been completed to bid on – and potentially be awarded – new projects. Given the systemic risks this represents for the procurement market, no such bidder should be allowed to participate in procurement procedures, be it alone or part of a consortium, unless they cooperate and facilitate the completion of an ex officio investigation. Additionally, public procurement should also consider the presence of industrial subsidies and structural overcapacities in the country of origin. In non-market economies, such factors often result in systematically underpriced products that cannot be matched by EU producers operating under normal market conditions.
• Very low bids and distortion of competition: Public procurement rules already provide contracting authorities with the possibility to exclude tenders where there is a distortion of competition, including in cases linked to dumping practices (abnormally low tenders). However, this possibility is rarely used in practice, and very low bids are often treated as a purely commercial issue. This approach ignores the reality that many such bids are the result of non market practices, including state subsidies, environmental dumping or structural overcapacities. The provisions on abnormally low tenders should therefore be reinforced, in full alignment with the FSR rules.
AEGIS Europe Statement on European content and preference
AEGIS Europe supports the inclusion of “Made in Europe” and European content requirements in future EU legislation, particularly under the Industrial Accelerator Act and the revision of the Public Procurement Directives. The statement argues that stronger transparency, origin criteria, and European preference rules are needed to reinforce industrial resilience, strategic autonomy, and fair competition in the face of global overcapacities and unfair trade practices.
AEGIS Europe Statement on European content and preference
AEGIS Europe supports the inclusion of European content and European preference considerations in forthcoming legislative initiatives, notably the Industrial Accelerator Act and the revision of the Public Procurement Directives.
Against a backdrop of global overcapacities, persistent unfair competition and rising economic security concerns, EU policy must more effectively support manufacturing capacity located in Europe, both for sectors already facing economic dependency and for those likely to be at risk in the coming years due to their strategic nature and ongoing market evolutions. European industries operate under high standards in terms of sustainability, safety and innovation.
Forthcoming EU legislation should therefore enable greater transparency on where products are manufactured, allowing public authorities and market actors to better align purchasing, investment and policy decisions with Europe’s industrial, climate and security objectives, while remaining proportionate and adaptable to sector-specific needs and constraints.
In situations where simple but reliable and mandatory information is seen as an effective instrument to promote products proudly made in Europe, and provided that clear and representative customs rules of origin or European content criteria are supported and recognised as such by the sector and value chain concerned, mandatory origin marking should be considered as a mean to achieve these objectives and should be proposed under the Industry Accelerator Act.
In any case, European content considerations must be addressed in a coherent manner across EU instruments and not confined to public projects alone. As a strategic lever, public procurement should also fully contribute to supporting European industrial capacity. The revision of the Public Procurement Directives should therefore allow for a genuine European preference, including through clear thresholds and criteria reflecting the proportion of value originating outside of Europe.
Contracting authorities should exclude economic operators from countries that are not parties to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) or to equivalent agreements with the EU, as well as tenders where a substantial share of the products or components originates from third countries.
Overall, the Industrial Accelerator Act and the revision of the Public Procurement Directives should rely on consistent principles and criteria, ensuring that demand-side measures, funding, and procurement rules jointly contribute to strengthening European production, resilient supply chains, and strategic autonomy.
AEGIS Europe and its members stand ready to engage constructively with the European Commission to help deliver a balanced framework that promotes European manufacturing, preserves an open but fair internal market, and reinforces Europe’s long-term industrial strength.
AEGIS Europe welcomes judgement of the ECJ (Case-652/22) Kolin Case - Public Procurement
Brussels, 27 January 2025 - On October 22nd, 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued a ruling in the Kolin Inşaat Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret case (C-652/22 – the “Kolin case”).
The case concerns a request for a preliminary ruling directed to the CJEU by a Croatian Court, during the proceedings to assess the legality of a decision to award a contract for the construction of a railway infrastructure to a competing bidder of the Turkish company Kolin. The competing bidder was allowed to amend its bid after the deadline for submission and Kolin argued that there was a violation of the principle of equal treatment. The CJEU upheld that bidders originating from a third country, which has not signed an international agreement on public procurement with the EU, cannot claim equal treatment with other bidders in this area and cannot effectively invoke the provisions of the EU public procurement directives.
AEGIS Europe welcomes this ruling as a major and positive development, having argued for years that these foreign bidders – especially from China – should not be treated in the same way as European bidders, considering the lack of reciprocity and the numerous market entry barriers (localisation requirements, discrimination in public procurement procedures to name a few). This was the outcome of many years of legal uncertainty, despite the positive interpretation of a Guidance on the participation of third country bidders in the EU procurement market published by the European Commission in 2019.
Nevertheless, AEGIS Europe has identified critical points that still need to be addressed in order to guarantee the positive and durable effects of this ruling:
a) At present, there are no legal acts governing the access of third-country contractors to public procurement procedures in member States, despite it being an exclusive EU competence. Therefore, the CJEU stated that it is up to a particular contracting entity to assess whether it should allow such a contractor to participate in a procedure. This poses significant challenges and creates legal uncertainty for contracting authorities but also for bidders themselves (which third countries are affected by the decision, how to assess what can legally be done etc.). It is crucial that this decision and the principle of non-equal treatment are formally enshrined in legal acts to guarantee legal certainty.
b) The risk of circumvention linked to EU based entities being ultimately controlled by foreign entities originating from countries with which the EU has no international agreement on public procurement, or to consortia involving both a European entity and a foreign one. AEGIS Europe strongly believes that the announced revision of the EU public procurement directives in 2026 constitutes a unique and crucial opportunity to implement the outcome of the Kolin case. It is even more important now that the European Commission confirmed, in the newly released Competitiveness Compass, the introduction of a European preference in public procurement for critical sectors and technologies, recognizing the importance of safeguarding European capacities against unfair competition, global overcapacities and market access restrictions.
Media contact: email: info@aegiseurope.eu | www.aegiseurope.eu
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About AEGIS Europe: AEGIS Europe is an industry alliance that brings together more than 30 European manufacturing associations and companies representing the whole value chain from metals and ceramics to transportation industries committed to manufacturing in the EU on a truly level playing field ensured by a rules-based free and fair international trade. Our members account for more than €500 billion in annual turnover, as well as for millions of jobs across the EU.