As the EU prepares to revise the public procurement directive, there is a key opportunity to ensure that the rules better support strategic ICT purchasing – from reducing environmental impacts and life cycle costs, to enhancing public procurers' expertise in strategic procurement, to reducing vendor lock-in. During this workshop, CoP members discussed the opportunities and challenges offered by the Public Procurement Directive, discussing real-life experiences and identifying key changes that public buyers would like to see in the revised directive. 

About the revision 
In 2024, the European Commission launched a revision of the EU Public Procurement  Directives, building on the reform agenda set out in the Letta (2024) and Draghi (2024)  reports. Both reports called for using public procurement more strategically to boost the EU competitiveness and innovation, improve access for SMEs, and strengthen EU-based suppliers. Therefore, this revision comes at a time of a significant switch in the EU  Commission’s strategic agenda, which shifted from sustainability to EU security in all 
aspects (e.g. sovereignty, competitiveness, access to critical materials…); and simplification.  A significant share of public spending is managed by regions, cities, and municipalities, yet local authorities face major difficulties in implementing the Directives for strategic procurement purposes.

Some key issues discussed 

• Price revision in public contracts: some contracts foresee an automatic indexation to Eurostat indexes, a mechanism that could be considered in the revision of the directive.
• Gold plating and transposition of EU laws into national legislation: in some countries, such as in Portugal, national authorities add additional provisions to the  EU legislation when transposing it into national law. This creates uncertainty and an additional burden on public administrations.
• Professionalisation & capacity building: there is a lack of professional figures in public entities running procurement practices. For instance, in Portugal, there is no  “public procurement expert,” but usually there is staff with a general financial/ legal background. In Portugal, there are innovation-focused training which also cover digital/AI for internal work. The French Senate strongly advocates for supporting and training public buyers (including elected public buyers), in particular by adapting the legal risks associated with non-compliance.
• Award criteria & Eligibility criteria: The EU provides GPP criteria. However, they are not often updated. Public authorities include GPP criteria in tenders, but not too many, to avoid limiting competition and raising prices. Award criteria should also include a low for take-back programs from suppliers. The extended guarantee is another important criterion. While some organizations give the choice to public authorities to add an extended guarantee, in most cases, it should be considered compulsory.  This ensures a longer lifespan for the equipment. There are different challenges regarding which eligibility and award criteria to include in tenders. For example, the city of Helsinki included an Ecolabel requirement for purchasing screens, but had difficulty liaising with manufacturers and resellers. The use of the EU repairability index for smartphones, which was introduced in 2025, should be incentivized. In  France, public buyers are required to take into account the French reparability and sustainability indexes in public procurement (art. 15 REEN law 2021) and, as of August 2026, to include sustainable development goals and quantified indicators and targets (art. 35 of the Climate and Resilience law 2021). 

To find more about the workshop and issues discussed, please log in to the Community and check out our resources.