The EU Wants to Change How Public Tenders Are Scored: What the New Procurement Proposal Means for Bidders

Public buyers in the EU spend about €2.5 trillion a year, and the Commission's own evaluation says the rules leave them with "high administrative burden and legal uncertainty, favouring the least risky choices". On 9 September 2026 the European Commission proposed one regulation, the Public Procurement Act (COM(2026) 590), to replace the three procurement directives of 2014. It is a proposal: Parliament and Council must agree it, and it would apply only two years after it enters into force. Nothing changes for the tenders you are bidding on now.

Quick answer: four things would change for a company that bids on public contracts. Price could no longer be the whole story: quality would have to count for at least 30 percent of the score, with an exception the buyer must justify. There would be three procedures instead of five, and buyers could negotiate in all of them. National tender platforms would be linked into one EU marketplace, so a company enters its basic details once. And buyers would get a clear legal right to limit a tender to EU companies and to non-EU companies covered by an agreement with the EU for that purchase. The value limits that decide when EU rules apply stay where they are for works and ordinary supplies and services.

The proposal in five numbers

• 30 percent is the minimum share of the score that quality criteria would carry (Article 98(4)); 50 percent for labour-intensive contracts, where labour normally makes up at least half of the contract value (Article 6(10))
• 3 procedures would replace the current 5: open with optional negotiation, dynamic and innovation; the open procedure gives at least 20 days for expressions of interest with a first tender (Article 34)
• €650 million is the Commission's estimate of yearly administrative savings: €570 million for companies, €80 million for public buyers
• €5,404,000 for works and €140,000 or €216,000 for supplies and services (central government and other buyers) are the thresholds in Article 2, the same figures as today's
• 2 years after entry into force is when the regulation would start applying (Article 149), once Parliament and Council have adopted it

Quality would get a guaranteed share of the score

Picture a tender scored out of 100 points. Today the buyer decides how many of those points go to price and how many to quality, and, where national law allows, can award on price alone. Under the draft, quality would normally take at least 30 of the 100 points. For labour-intensive contracts such as cleaning, the minimum would be 50. A buyer could still award on price alone, but only by explaining how the specifications or contract terms secure quality instead (Article 98(5)); the Commission calls this "comply or explain".

Scoring quality is not new: Article 67 of Directive 2014/24/EU already allows a price-quality ratio. What is new is the guaranteed minimum. Buyers would still choose the quality criteria and their weightings from the kinds of things Article 98 names: technical merit, environmental and social factors, innovation, security of supply, the staff assigned, delivery terms.

Lots: buyers would have to explain why they do not split a contract

A lot is a separate part of a contract that a company can bid for on its own. Today's directive already makes a buyer give its main reasons for not splitting (Article 46), and already lets small lots, below €80,000 for supplies or services or €1 million for works and up to 20 percent of the total, be awarded without the directive's procedures (Article 5(10)). The draft keeps both and lists what the buyer must weigh where relevant: SME participation, dependency on a single supplier, supply-chain resilience, security of supply and innovation, against efficiency and the integrity of the procedure (Article 100).

"European preference": who can bid, and from where

The practical meaning first: a buyer could choose to limit a tender to EU companies and to non-EU companies covered by an agreement with the EU for that particular purchase. The draft calls those companies "covered". Under Article 70 a company is covered if its country is party to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), has a trade agreement with the EU, or has a customs-union agreement with the EU, and if that particular purchase falls within the EU's commitments under the agreement. The Guardian reports the GPA has 22 parties including the EU, the UK, the US, Canada and Japan; mainland China is not one.

Second, the goods themselves. A buyer could require that what is offered originates in the EU or a covered country, "fully, or to a certain degree", and could reject a bid where less than half of its value is EU or covered (Article 73(2)). Origin is determined under existing EU customs and trade rules (Article 74).

Third, the scoring. For ranking only, a buyer could give a price discount or extra points to bids from EU or covered companies, or to bids with a higher EU or covered share. Any of these measures must be announced in the tender notice (the "public summary of competition"), and buyers must report signs of circumvention to a national authority (Article 73(3) and (4)). Article 76 lets a buyer set preference aside in four cases, including where no EU or covered supplier can deliver "and no reasonable alternative or substitute exists", and where applying it would mean buying "at disproportionate costs". Delegated acts, extra rules the Commission could adopt under powers the regulation gives it, could make preference mandatory "where this is in the interest of the Union" (Article 75).

What the Commission says, and what others say

Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné put the responsibility on buyers. "Purchasers can have a more preferential approach to European bids [and] restrict or reject bids from countries which do not have a public procurement agreement or do not play by binding rules in terms of public procurement internationally," he told reporters, per the Guardian. To NOS: if Chinese buses soon drive through Berlin, "that cannot be blamed on us".

NOS also notes the limits: nothing obliges a buyer to prefer European companies, and the buyer decides how to fill in the quality criteria. Séjourné conceded that Chinese products are regularly better on sustainability, "so we must help European companies produce the same quality, or even better".

China objected on 17 September. He Yadong, spokesperson of China's Ministry of Commerce, said China is "very concerned" by the "European preference" clauses and urged the EU "to respect WTO rules, keep its market open and revise the discriminatory clauses".

Lithuania will push the reform during its Council presidency in the first half of 2027, Economy and Innovation Minister Edvinas Grikšas said on 14 September.

What is still open

The text is likely to be "altered during the legislative process", in the Guardian's reading. Parliament's procedure file (2026/0265(COD)) lists the proposal in its preparatory phase, with the committee referral still pending, no rapporteur and no vote date. The Commission's promised online tool for checking coverage and origin has no launch date, and the delegated acts that could make preference mandatory do not exist. Thresholds may also change before the regulation applies, since they are revised every two years (Article 3).

What to do now

• Quality criteria weighted in the tender you are reading? List the evidence each criterion asks for and estimate the points you can earn before you price the bid.
• Supply chain includes non-EU components? Check whether that purchase is covered by the EU's commitments to the country of origin, by buyer, subject matter and value, not only whether the country is a GPA party; Article 70 draws that line.
• Contract below €140,000 (central government) or €216,000 (other buyers) for supplies and services, or below €5,404,000 for works? The draft's procedure and award rules would generally not apply and national law sets them, although some of its data-reporting duties would still capture the contract (Article 134).

Open Tendly to see which tenders match your company today, or let a Strategist expert watch the market for you.