You are kindly invited to vote on the approval of DIGITAL SME’s initial Response to the Call for Evidence on the Revision of the EU’s Public Procurement Directive. Click here to download the draft.

Background:

The EU is revising its public procurement framework, which governs over EUR 600 billion in annual spending across Europe, around three times the size of the EU budget. The most relevant part of the revision focuses on the Public Procurement Directive (2014/24/EU), alongside the Concessions and Utilities Directives. As announced by President von der Leyen, the revision will introduce resilience, sustainability, and European preference criteria in strategic sectors while simplifying fragmented rules and improving the digitalisation of tendering processes.

DIGITAL SME’s response advocates for mandatory European preference criteria in public procurement for digital technologies, with clear eligibility requirements including EU/EFTA headquarters, European jurisdiction, majority European ownership, and primary R&D activities located in Europe. The response calls for strengthened lot division requirements to facilitate SME participation, fair subcontracting rules ensuring SMEs receive adequate value when performing contract work, simplified procedures through digital integration, and clearer limits on in-house procurement to prevent its misuse as a mechanism to bypass competitive tendering. The revision must transform public procurement from a compliance exercise into a strategic tool for building European digital sovereignty.