European Commission Directorate-General for Trade

Public procurement

The European Commission is proposing a new set of tools in the area of public procurement to ensure further opportunities and greater fairness for EU businesses competing internationally, to the benefit of growth and jobs. The proposal confirms the traditional openness of the EU's public procurement markets and provides the Commission with tools to engage countries outside the EU in negotiations to further open their public procurement markets.

What is public procurement?

Public procurement is about how public authorities spend public money when buying goods, works or services on the market. This can range from buying IT equipment, providing water treatment services to building a hospital or a road.

Public procurement matters for our economy

Public procurement affects a substantial share of world trade flows, amounting to 1000 billion Euro per year. It also makes up a significant part of national economies: 10-25% of GDP. In the EU, the public purchase of goods and services corresponds to 16% of GDP

Public procurement contracts constitute considerable international business opportunities in sectors where EU industry is highly competitive. This stimulates a competitive European industry, creating jobs and sustainable economic growth.

Opening international markets

In addition to working on the EU procurement market, the EU fights for an ambitious opening of international public procurement markets. The EU negotiates both bilateral and multilateral international agreements (WTO Government Procurement Agreement – GPA). Firstly, we want to set modern and international standard procurement principles which seek to ensure that public money is spent in a transparent, efficient and non-discriminatory way. Secondly, we want to provide a level playing field for EU suppliers when tendering abroad.

The successful conclusion of the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) on the 15 December 2011, was an important step towards opening international public procurement markets. This agreement – between 15 parties (including the EU) – updated tender rules and additional market commitments.

What needs to change?

While the EU procurement market is one of the most open in the world, European businesses cannot always get equal access to procurement markets outside the EU. Many countries are reluctant to open their procurement markets to international competition. This limits business opportunities for EU companies in these markets.

Similarly, some countries have introduced protectionist measures relating to procurement contracts which hit EU companies. Examples of these are Buy American, Buy Brazil, Buy China, domestic preferences in Turkey, Russia, certain States in Australia, etc.