European Commission Proposes Simpler and More Strategic Public Procurement Rules

The European Commission adopted a proposal for a new regulation to modernise and simplify the EU's public procurement framework and support investment in public services and infrastructure. Public procurement accounts for around 15% of EU GDP. The proposal is expected to deliver annual administrative savings of €650 million, including €80 million for public buyers and €570 million for economic operators. It consolidates three existing procurement directives into one directly applicable regulation, reduces procedures from five to three, and creates a digital procurement marketplace of interconnected Member States' eProcurement platforms applying a once-only principle. The Best Price-Quality…