CLIENT ALERT !

Executive Summary

On 9 September 2026, the European Commission published its proposal for a Regulation on public contracts and concessions, known as the “Public Procurement Act” (COM(2026) 590). The new Regulation would replace the three 2014 Procurement Directives, directly applicable in all Member States without transposition into national law. The Proposal foresees the reduction of the award procedures to two main ones, complemented by an innovation procedure, negotiation being possible in all of them. It makes the best price-quality ratio the standard award method, with a minimum weight of 30% for quality. Furthermore, it gathers in one piece of legislation the green, social and security requirements currently scattered across sectoral legislation and, for the first time, sets out a general framework for a “European preference” towards third countries. With the presentation of the Proposal, the legislative process has just started. It will now be scrutinised by the EU’s main legislative bodies, the European Parliament and the Council.

The Current Regime: the 2014 Procurement Directive

Public Procurement, meaning the purchase of works, supplies and services by public authorities, accounts for around 15% of the EU’s GDP. Since 2014, contracts above certain values have been governed by three directives: Directive 2014/23/EU on the award of concession contracts, Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement in general, and Directive 2014/25/EU on procurement by entities in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors (“utilities”). As directives, they had to be transposed into national law. Under the current regime, public buyers must choose one of five different award procedures, each with its own conditions. In the two most common ones, the open and the restricted procedure, they may not negotiate with tenderers, negotiation being reserved for specific procedures that can be used only in defined cases, such as complex contracts. Public buyers may also award a contract simply to the lowest-priced tender, without assessing quality.

The Commission’s evaluation of the Directives concluded that the current regime would be too complex and rigid, that price-only awards would remain prevalent, that the rules on access for non-EU companies would lack clarity, and that the electronic procurement systems would be fragmented. The European Court of Auditors had also found that competition for public contracts had decreased over the past decade, and that the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and cross-border bidders remained limited. In addition, procurement obligations have multiplied outside the Directives, in more than fifty sector-specific legal instruments, thus entailing the risk of legal uncertainty. These instruments contain three kinds of procurement provisions: grounds for excluding a company from a tender, which are today scattered across several acts and applied unevenly; requirements on what public buyers must purchase, for instance energy-efficient products or accessible services; and separate, uncoordinated powers for the Commission, to set green procurement requirements in individual sectors. According to the Commission, this fragmentation can create disproportionate administrative burden and legal uncertainty for public buyers and companies alike.

The Proposed Regime: The Public Procurement Act

One single Regulation

Against this background, the Commission proposes to merge the three Directives into one regulation based on Article 114 TFEU, the Treaty provision that allows the EU to harmonise national rules where this is needed for the functioning of the internal market. It covers public contracts, utilities procurement, as well as concessions, and uses the single term “public buyer” for all authorities and entities subject to the rules. As for today, the Regulation would apply only to contracts the estimated value of which, net of VAT, is equal to or above the following thresholds:

Every two years, the Commission would verify these thresholds correspond to those set in the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), the international agreement under which its parties open their procurement markets to one another and would revise them where necessary. Defence and security contracts and contracts for research and development services remain outside the scope.

More flexible procedures

Additionally, the proposal replaces the current range of procedures with two main ones, each of which may be run with or without selection criteria, and with or without negotiation. In the open procedure, any company may submit a tender from the outset, within at least 20 days from publication, against a general minimum of 35 days today. In the dynamic procedure, companies would join a procedure that stays open for a set period and are later invited to tender for individual contracts.

These two procedures are complemented by an innovation procedure, intended for cases in which no suitable solution exists on the market: the public buyer describes a “societal challenge”, tests the proposals received for up to two years and may then negotiate the purchase of the resulting solution. As a rule, the company that develops the solution keeps ownership of the intellectual property rights arising from it, such as patents or software, and can therefore sell the solution to other customers. The public buyer may take ownership only for overriding reasons of public interest stated at the outset, for example to avoid becoming dependent on a single supplier or to protect critical infrastructure.

Negotiation is possible in all of these procedures, but only on the non-essential characteristics of the purchase, such as quantity or delivery conditions. Exclusion grounds, selection criteria, and award criteria may not be negotiated. Moreover, a contract may be awarded directly, without prior publication, only in a closed list of situations, such as extreme urgency or where only one company can supply the solution. In any event, the result would need to be published.

Participation and Award

Public buyers shall exclude companies convicted by final judgment of offences such as corruption, fraud, money laundering, terrorism, trafficking in human beings, environmental crime or violation of EU sanctions, in principle for five years. Beyond these mandatory cases, public buyers keep a discretion regarding whether to exclude companies the reliability of which is in doubt, for example because of grave professional misconduct or collusion with competitors. The proposal adds a new ground to this list: a company may be excluded where it has received foreign subsidies that the Commission has found to distort the internal market.

The proposal also seeks to provide for simplified tendering procedures. Selection criteria, meaning the requirements a public buyer sets on a company’s financial standing and technical ability, would become optional, and where they are used, they would be subject to two limits. First, public buyers may not require a minimum yearly turnover of more than 50% of the estimated annual contract value, whereas today’s limit is twice the estimated contract value. A higher turnover may be required only in duly justified cases, for instance because of special risks attached to the documents. Second, public buyers may not ask for previous experience in public contracts as a condition for participation, unless this is justified by the complexity of the contract or the nature of its subject-matter. In practice, a company that has so far only worked for private customers could no longer be kept out of a tender on that ground alone. Subcontracting remains possible, but with more transparency: tenderers must name their proposed subcontractors in the tender, and a contract may not be subcontracted in its entirety.

One of the crucial changes concerns the award procedure: Contracts are to be awarded by the best price-quality ratio (BPQR) method, under which tenders are compared on both price and quality criteria, such as technical merit, environmental and social characteristics, staff qualifications, or delivery conditions.

Quality must account for at least 30% of the total points. For labour-intensive contracts, in which labour normally represents at least 50% of the contract value, the minimum share for quality points rises to 50%. The 30% rule is a default, not an absolute obligation. A public buyer may depart from it, and even award on price alone, where it can guarantee quality by other means: either by fixing the required quality in the technical specifications, or by imposing it through the conditions for performing the contract. This could be the case, for example, for standardised products, where every compliant tender is of the same quality. The public buyer would then have to state, when launching the procedure, which of these options it relies on. This is what the Commission calls a “comply or explain”-approach: ‘follow the rule or say publicly why you do not.’ A related safeguard addresses tenders that are suspiciously cheap. Where a price appears abnormally low compared with the other tenders or with market prices, the public buyer must ask the tenderer to explain it and must reject the tender if the explanation is not satisfactory.

Green, Social and Security requirements

The proposal combines the requirements on what public authorities must buy, as opposed to how they buy it, which are currently found in sectoral legislation. For the most part, public buyers may, but are not obliged to, take environmental and social considerations into account.

As to environmental considerations, these are commonly referred to as ‘green public procurement’ (GPP). The proposal defines GPP as taking environmental and climate-related impacts into account over the whole life cycle of what is purchased, in pursuit of objectives such as climate change mitigation, the circular economy, pollution prevention and the protection of biodiversity. Public buyers may, for example, require durability, reparability or recycled content instead of buying new products. Mere compliance with the environmental obligations that apply to everyone may not count as GPP. Social considerations may likewise be taken into account, for instance the integration of persons with disabilities, training of workers or gender equality and it may be the case that public buyers reserve contracts for the organisations whose main aim is such integration.

Nevertheless, the proposal foresees also mandatory requirements. Public buyers shall purchase only products, services and works with high energy efficiency performance, unless this is not technically feasible, an obligation taken over from the Energy Efficiency Directive (EU) 2023/1791). They shall, as a general rule, require accessibility for persons with disabilities for everything intended for use by natural persons. Where they require an ecolabel, this must be the EU Ecolabel if EU Ecolabel criteria exist for the product concerned.

For products covered by certain pieces of EU environmental legislation, public buyers shall require environmental characteristics based on those acts, and the Commission may make specific requirements mandatory by delegated act. This consolidation directly affects recent legislation, five pieces of legislation losing all or part of their own provisions on green public procurement: Article 65 of the Ecodesign Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, Article 25(4) and (5) of the Net-Zero Industry Act (EU) 2024/1735, Article 85 of the Batteries Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, Article 83 of the Construction Products Regulation (EU) 2024/3110 and Article 63 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste (PPWR).

The proposal devotes an entire chapter of the Regulation, entitled ‘Security and resilience’, to procurements that present a risk to security or public safety. Such a risk may stem from the contract itself, for instance because it gives access to sensitive data or critical infrastructure, or from the company, for instance because of who owns it, or because it is subject to third-country legislation that could force it to disclose sensitive information. In such cases, public buyers shall take appropriate and proportionate measures. They may, for example, require security certifications or the vetting of the staff working on the contract, score tenderers on their security management, or reserve the right to audit the supplier and to be notified of any change in its ownership. These obligations continue after the award. A public buyer may terminate a contract, in whole or in part, where the contractor breaches its security obligations or where a security risk has materialised or is likely to do so. It must first carry out a written assessment and, as a rule, give the contractor at least ten days to respond.

European preference – “Buy European”

The most politically sensitive part of the proposal concerns companies and goods from outside the EU. It distinguishes between “covered” and “non-covered” companies, goods, services and works. They are “covered” where they originate in a third party to the GPA, or that has a trade agreement or customs union with the EU containing procurement commitments, and the contract falls within those commitments. Covered companies must be treated equally with EU companies, as is already the case today.

With regard to the “non-covered” ones, the current rules offer only one limited tool: utilities may reject a supply tender in which more than 50% of the products come from such third countries. The proposal goes considerably further and allows all public buyers to apply “European preference” requirements. They may restrict participation to EU and covered companies, require that the goods or services offered be of EU or covered origin, give EU and covered tenders an advantage in the evaluation, or reject a tender in which EU or covered content represents less than 50% of its value. These tools are optional and must be announced when the procedure is launched, but the Commission may make them mandatory by delegated act. Exceptions apply, in particular in cases of emergency, where no EU or covered supplier exists or where costs would be disproportionate. In practice, tenderers will have to declare their country of origin and, where required, that of their goods.

Contract performance and digital tools

A contract may be modified without a new procedure where the value of the modification does not exceed 15% of the initial contract value, counted cumulatively (today 10% for supplies and services and 15% for works), and the economic balance of the contract is not altered. Larger modifications are permitted only in defined cases, such as circumstances that could not have been anticipated. Price indexation clauses provided for in the contract do not count as modifications.

Finally, the proposal creates a common digital ecosystem. National eProcurement systems are to be connected, and the Commission will operate an electronic eligibility service through which companies prove that they are not excluded and meet the selection criteria. The service applies the “once-only” principle: evidence is retrieved from official registers and is not submitted again for each tender. The EU-level tools are to be available by 30 June 2028, and Member States must connect their national registers by 15 June 2029. The Commission estimates yearly savings for companies of around EUR 1 billion, against new costs of EUR 477 million.

Current Rules and Proposal at a Glance

Next Steps

The proposal will now be examined by the European Parliament and the Council under the ordinary legislative procedure, and its content may change significantly before adoption. Once adopted, the Regulation would enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal and apply two years later, when the three 2014 Directives would be repealed. Related proposals containing procurement provisions, such as the Industrial Accelerator Act and the European Innovation Act, are being negotiated in parallel.

Conclusion

• The proposal would replace the three 2014 Procurement Directives with a single regulation, directly applicable in all Member States

• The procedures are reduced to two main ones (open and dynamic), complemented by an innovation procedure, and negotiation is possible in all of them.
• The best price-quality ratio becomes the standard award method, with quality counting for at least 30% of the points, and 50% for labour-intensive contracts.
• Green, social and security requirements are gathered in one text, and sectoral provisions, such as Article 63 of the PPWR on green public procurement, are deleted.
• Public buyers may apply a European preference against companies and goods from third countries not covered by an EU procurement agreement, and the Commission may make this mandatory.
• The text is still subject to negotiation and would apply two years after its entry into force. Companies active in public tenders should follow the negotiations, in particular on the award, subcontracting and origin rules

Business Models, Regulation and Return on Investment in Sport

The sports industry is undergoing a profound structural transformation. In this setting, the economic sustainability of the business has become a cornerstone of long-term competitiveness.

GA-Alliance, an international law and tax firm, is organising a workshop on the development of next-generation sports infrastructure. These facilities are no longer mere stadiums or arenas. They are multifunctional economic hubs, designed to maximise return on investment and to diversify revenue streams.

The session will examine four topics:

• available incentives;
• public-private partnerships;
• the management of corporate risk;
• competition law safeguards.

It will provide a forum for clubs, federations, institutional investors and public bodies to share insights and practical developments.

Programme

• 10.30 – 11.00 | Registration
• 11.00 – 13.00 | Workshop
• 13.00 – 14.00 | Light lunch

Speakers

Opening Remarks / Chair
Francesco Sciaudone, Managing Partner, GA-Alliance

• Massimiliano Atelli, President, Independent Commission for the Financial Oversight of Professional Sports Companies
• Antonella Baldino, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager, Istituto per il Credito Sportivo e Culturale
• Stefano Campoccia, Vice-President, Udinese Calcio S.p.A.
• Cristiano Cerchiai, President, Italian Golf Federation · Partner, GA-Alliance
• Enrico Lubrano, Of Counsel, GA-Alliance
• Alfredo Macchiati, Partner, Oxera Consulting
• Andrea Martina, Partner, GA-Alliance
• Federico Merola, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager, Arpinge S.p.A.
• Tommaso Miele, President, UEFA Licensing Commission
• Ezio Simonelli, Of Counsel, GA-Alliance · President, Lega Calcio Serie A
• Michele Uva, Executive Director, UEFA EURO 2032

Event details

• Date: 12 November 2026
• Time: 11.00 – 14.00
• Venue: GA-Alliance | Global legal&tax Advisor, Corso Europa 12, Milan

Places are limited. Registration Link: here

For further information: marketing@ga-alliance.eu

CLIENT ALERT!

Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste (PPWR) has entered into application on 12 August 2026, replacing Directive 94/62/EC. As a regulation, in contrast to a directive, the PPWR is directly applicable across the EU, without requiring any transposition into the national law of each Member State. The scope of the PPWR covers the entire lifecycle of packaging placed on the EU market, from its design to its end-of-life. While the heavy metals limit and the recycling targets are carried over from the previous regime, the regulation turns formerly general requirements into precise, dated obligations on recyclability, minimization, reuse, labelling, and mandatory recycled content, most of which apply from 2030. It also introduces limits on the content of PFAS in food-contact packaging, a conformity assessment, a declaration of conformity for manufacturers, a cap on empty space in packaging, bans on certain single-use formats, as well as refill and reuse obligations for the take-away sector.

INDEX

• The Regime before the PPWR
• New Regime: Regulation (EU) 2025/40
• Conclusion
• Download the Client Alert!

A. The Regime before the PPWR

Until this summer, the packaging in the European Union was governed by Directive 94/62/EC, adopted in 1994 and amended several times, most recently in 2018.

The directive set a limit on heavy metals in packaging and laid down general “essential requirements”, under which packaging had to be kept to the minimum adequate weight and volume, and be designed to allow reuse or recovery. These requirements were binding for placing packaging on the market, but they were formulated in general, qualitative terms, and left considerable room for interpretation, with the technical details developed through harmonized standards rather than in the legislation itself. The Directive also set recycling targets for Member States and required them to establish extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes for all packaging by the end of 2024. Extended producer responsibility aims at enforcing the “Polluter-Pays-Principle”, one of the most important principles of EU Environmental Law, enshrined in Article 191(2) TFEU. This principle provides that the entity causing environmental damages is responsible for remedying them, which includes financial compensation. Finally, the now revived Directive encouraged waste prevention and reuse, however without making them mandatory. The marking of packaging materials was voluntary.

B. New Regime: Regulation (EU) 2025/40

Against this background, Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste (PPWR) was adopted on 19 December 2024 and published in the Official Journal on 22 January 2025 with the aim of fostering circular economy as a foundational pillar of the European Green Deal. The Regulation repeals Directive 94/62/EC and, as a regulation, applies directly and uniformly in all Member States. It covers all packaging, whatever the material, and addresses the full cycle from design to waste status. Member States shall not restrict the placing on the market of packaging that complies with the regulation's sustainability and labeling requirements.

Some elements of the old regime covered by Directive 94/62/EC have been retained, such as the limit of 100mg/kg on the combined concentration of lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium. The recycling targets for Member States are also unchanged: 65% of all packaging waste shall be recycled in each Member State by the end of 2025, and 70% by the end of 2030, together with material-specific targets. By the end of 2030, for example, Member States must recycle 85% of paper and cardboard packaging waste, 80% of ferrous metals, 75% of glass, 60% of aluminum, 55% of plastic and 30% of wood. The principle of extended producer responsibility (EPR) also remains in place. Thus, producers that place packaging or packaged products on the market bear the financial, and, where applicable, organizational responsibility for managing this packaging once it becomes waste, in practice usually by paying fees to a collective scheme. These fees cover the costs of separately collecting, transporting and treating the waste.

Other elements are tightened significantly, not least recyclability. All packaging must become recyclable. However, this requirement does not apply immediately: packaging must be designed for recycling from 1 January 2030, or 24 months after the entry into force of the Commission's delegated acts on design for recycling, whatever is later, and must additionally be recycled at scale from 1 January 2035. Recyclability will be expressed in performance grades, based on a recyclability score assessed per packaging unit: grade A means a score of at least 95%, grade B at least 80%, and grade C at least 70%. Packaging scoring below 70% is considered technically non-recyclable. The detailed assessment criteria will be set by the Commission. Only packaging in grades, A, B, or C may be placed on the market from 2030, and only packaging in grades A or B from 2038. By 1 January 2030, packaging must be reduced to the minimum weight and volume necessary for its function. Features that only increase the perceived volume of the product, such as false bottoms and double walls, will be prohibited.

Member States must reduce packaging waste per capita by 5% by 2030, 10% by 2035, and 15% by 2040, in each case compared with the packaging waste generated per capita in 2018, as reported by each Member State to the Commission. From 2030, at least 40% of transport packaging must be reusable and the reusable share must be at least 10% for non-cardboard grouped packaging boxes and 10% for beverages made available by final distributors. Wine, spirits and highly perishable beverages are exempt from the beverage target.

Packaging labeling moves from a voluntary system to a mandatory harmonized label, based on pictograms, indicating the material composition of packaging to help consumers sort it. Minimum recycled content, previously limited to plastic beverage bottles, is extended to all plastic packaging. The minimum share of recycled plastic, calculated as a yearly average per manufacturing plant, is set out in the table below. The 2030 date will be postponed if the Commission adopts the calculation methodology late.

Producer responsibility is reinforced. The regulation introduces harmonized national registers of producers. Producers selling directly to end users in other Member States must appoint a local authorized representative. Online platforms must verify the compliance of producers using their services.

In addition, the Regulation introduces significant obligations regarding the content of PFAS, regarding PFAS in all food-contact packaging. PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a group of thousands of synthetic chemicals used in a broad range of applications, with food-contact materials and packaging among the most relevant sectors. They are often called “forever chemicals” because they are very persistent: they either do not break down in the environment themselves or degrade into other PFAS that do not break down. Many PFAS are classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic for reproduction or toxic to specific organs, and their presence in food-contact materials inevitably leads to human exposure. The regulation therefore treats this exposure as an unacceptable risk to human health.

Since 12 August 2026, food-contact packaging may not be placed on the market if it contains PFAS at or above any of three limit values: 25 parts per billion (ppb) for any individual PFAS; 250 ppb for the sum of PFAS, in both cases measured by targeted analysis and excluding polymeric PFAS; and 50 parts per million (ppm) for PFAS overall, including polymeric PFAS. In this context, one ppb is one microgram per kilogram of material, and one ppm is one milligram per kilogram. Where total fluorine content exceeds 50mg/kg, the supplier of the material must, on request, provide proof of how much of that fluorine is attributable to PFAS, so that the manufacturer or importer can complete its technical documentation. The Commission must evaluate by 12 August 2030 whether this restriction needs to be amended or resealed, to avoid overlaps with PFAS restrictions in other EU legislation.

The new rules require tea and coffee bags as well as fruit and vegetable stickers to be compostable by 12 February 2028. Environmental claims about packaging are permitted only where the packaging exceeds the regulation's minimum requirements. Manufacturers are then required to carry out a conformity assessment, keep technical documentation, and issue an EU declaration of conformity for their products packaging.

The regulation also targets excessive and avoidable packaging. A maximum empty space ratio of 50% will apply to grouped, transport and e-commerce packaging. In practice, no more than half the volume of a shipping box may be empty or taken up by filling materials such as air cushions, bubble wrap or paper cuttings. From 1 January 2030, certain single use formats will be banned. These include plastic shrink wrap used to group bottles or cans at the point of sale, plastic packaging for less than 1.5kg of pre-packaged fresh fruit and vegetables, single-use plastic plates, cups and trays for food and drink consumed on the premises of restaurants and cafés, single-portion plastic sachets for condiments, as well as sauces and sugar in the same sector.

Finally, in the take-away sector, operators must accept customers' own containers by 12 February 2027 and offer a reusable packaging option by 12 February 2028. Member States must provide penalties, including mandatory administrative fines, for violations of the rules on excessive packaging, format bans and reuse.

C. Conclusion

• The PPWR has applied directly in all Member States since 12 August 2026, replacing Directive 94/62/EC.
• The limits on PFAS in food-contact packaging have also applied since that date.
• Most other obligations follow in stages.
• Minimum recycled content will apply to all plastic packaging, in principle from 2030, at between 10% and 35% depending on the type of packaging, rising to between 25% and 65% from 2040.
• Recyclability and minimization requirements and binding reuse targets also apply from 2030.
• Member States must in turn reduce packaging waste per capita by 5% by 2030, 10% by 2035 and 15% by 2040, compared with 2018 levels.
• Businesses placing packaged products on the EU market should identify their role under the Regulation and begin adapting their packaging well ahead of the 2030 deadlines.

Client Alert!

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