Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Added70. 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;

Added71. 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;

Added72. 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;

Added73. 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;

Added74. 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;

Added75. 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;

Added76. Stresses that the EU public procurement framework must ensure equitable access for SMEs, social economy entities and local businesses by promoting simplified procedures, including by ensuring that companies are not required to re-submit publicly available information in their tender application and by applying proportional requirements based on the local context; calls on the Commission to consider mainstreaming the division of contracts into smaller lots to foster competition and to prevent dominance by large entities, while recognising that contracts should not be divided where there is a genuine technological or efficiency rationale for not doing so; emphasises the need for clear guidelines determining when non-division of contracts is justified; notes that the division of lots is also an effective means of preventing unfeasible subcontractor chains;

Added77. 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;

Added78. 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;

Added79. Reiterates that equitable access to public procurement procedures necessitates a simplification and clarification of the rules for contracting authorities;

Added80. 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;

Added81. 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;

Added82. 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;

Added83. 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;

Added84. 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;

Added85. 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;

Added86. 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;

Added87. 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;

Added88. 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;

Added89. 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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90. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.