Interview with Alessandro Valenza | Policy analyst, Lecturer and Senior public policy consultant at T33, OpenEconomics Group
The European Commission has recently presented its proposal for a regulation on public procurement (Public Procurement Act), which would replace the three 2014 directives. Among the sources referenced in the new text is the study "How EU public procurement rules affect regions and cities", carried out in 2025 by T33 for the European Committee of the Regions. To understand what changes for public authorities, businesses and associations, we asked Alessandro Valenza to share his expert opinon.
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Why does this proposal matter even to those who do not deal with procurement every day?
Because it changes the kind of work public administrations need to be able to do. On 9 September 2026, the Commission proposed replacing the three 2014 directives on public procurement, utilities and concessions with a single regulation. The text, which must be negotiated and adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, has the stated aim of simplification. At the same time, it requires contracting authorities, that is, the bodies that launch tenders, to have broader skills and to use data more systematically. If adopted, the reform will not entirely eliminate the problems; it will change their nature. The centre of gravity will shift from following procedures, so-called compliance, to the capacity to plan, select quality criteria, negotiate and manage data: in other words, to performance.
What evidence underpins this reading?
The study that T33 carried out in 2025 with Spatial Foresight for the European Committee of the Regions. Our methodology combined desk research, interviews, a survey of 62 local and regional authorities in 18 Member States, and a consultation with legal and academic experts on three scenarios. What we found is that the difficulties stem only partly from the directives: overlaps with sectoral legislation, additional rules introduced by Member States during transposition, legal uncertainty over interpretation and limited administrative capacity also play a role. Around half of the authorities responding to the survey cite the interpretation of the rules as a frequent difficulty.
In practical terms, what changes compared with the current rules?
The first simplification concerns how EU legislation takes effect. Today, procurement is governed by three 2014 directives, on concessions, classic procurement and utilities, which Member States must turn into national law: a step known as transposition. With the Public Procurement Act, the Commission instead proposes a single regulation that applies directly. The proposal replaces the multiplicity of procedures with three instruments: under the open procedure, economic operators submit a tender that can subsequently be negotiated; under the dynamic procedure, operators first join a procurement system that remains open throughout its duration, and the contracting authority then invites them to tender for individual opportunities; finally, the innovation procedure (innovation challenge) is used to develop innovative solutions on commission.
And what about the award criteria?
Under the proposal, the best price-quality ratio becomes the default criterion: as a rule, a tender no longer wins simply because it is the cheapest. Quality criteria must account for at least 30% of the score, rising to 50% for labour-intensive contracts, meaning those where labour costs represent at least 50% of the contract value. Contracting authorities may derogate, but must justify this in the contract notice, explaining that quality is already ensured by the technical specifications or the contract performance conditions. In a cleaning services contract, for example, at least half of the points would go to service quality, staff training and environmental criteria, with price worth at most the other half. This is why contracting authorities need expertise in the substance, not just the procedure: setting relevant, measurable criteria and then assessing them transparently.
What changes in practice for an individual public authority?
Every authority, even the smallest, will have to apply the EU text directly, without national transposing legislation: this is why guidance, templates and helpdesk services will become essential. Authorities will also have to transmit information on their procedures to national data systems within 20 days, including for below-threshold contracts worth €10,000 or more.
Why do data play such a central role?
Because the study found that procurement data are often treated as a formal obligation rather than as a source of knowledge for policymaking. The proposal establishes national procurement data spaces, linked to a European space managed by the Commission. According to the explanatory memorandum, they will be used to monitor competition, cross-border participation, access for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), strategic procurement and risks to integrity and security of supply. Member States will need an evidence-based monitoring system and must publish its results at least once a year. For individual authorities, the data spaces are also a way to understand how markets function. The shift from better rules to better knowledge of procurement is what is known as procurement intelligence.
What are the critical issues, and what remains open?
Allowing negotiation in all procedures widens discretion and calls for stronger skills, as well as adequate safeguards for transparency and integrity. The Commission's Regulatory Scrutiny Board also drew attention to the combined effects of more negotiation and more quality. The regulation reduces the risk of gold-plating, the practice whereby a Member State introduces additional rules, requirements or red tape, but differences may persist in areas left to Member States, such as below-threshold procurement and administrative organisation. Several issues will be decisive at the implementation stage: the territorial disaggregation of data, deferred to implementing acts; access to data for regions and cities and its use in their own policies; the effective interoperability of systems; and resources for professionalisation, which are left to Member States. Some of the study's recommendations, such as incentives linked to EU funds and the European Semester, stakeholder engagement and resources for administrative capacity, would require instruments beyond the regulation: they depend above all on the post-2027 EU policy framework and on choices made by the Commission and Member States.
What should public authorities do, and what changes for businesses?
The two years between the regulation's entry into force and its application will be the window for building the required capacity. For public authorities, this means planning purchases, getting to know the market, selecting and weighting criteria, negotiating, using data and monitoring results. The proposal makes a national professionalisation strategy mandatory, with support structures at regional and local level as well. For businesses, the reform is a test for the capabilities of their bid teams and, thanks to the potential availability of data and the greater weight of quality criteria, can also be an opportunity for growth. The data framework should also make it possible to measure SME participation, and the study recommended involving local authorities, SMEs and the social economy on an ongoing basis at every stage of the reform. This opens up a field of work spanning data governance, analysis, evaluation and administrative capacity building, to which T33 and OpenEconomics intend to keep contributing.
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