Regulatory simplification and public-public cooperation: the reform proposed by the European Parliament

Resolution P10_TA(2025)0174 of the European Parliament brings together two ideas that, at first sight, might seem contradictory: reducing the volume of legislation without giving up the principles of competition, transparency and the fight against corruption; and widening the room for autonomy that public entities have in organising their services, by reviewing the regime applicable to public-public cooperation.

The paradox of simplification

Paragraph 6 of the resolution frames the challenge with a specific figure:

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The updated versions of the directives should aim to reduce the current 476 articles, or 907 pages, of legislation, and should remain strictly procedural in nature and specify how to buy rather than what to buy.

Parliament then sets a limit on that simplification: enough flexibility must be retained for contracting entities to adapt procedures to their specific needs. The reform aspires to a shorter directive that nonetheless leaves more room for the contracting authority's technical discretion, rather than to a text that is both minimalist and rigid.

What "strictly procedural" means

The 2014 directives are hybrid in nature: they regulate both procedural matters (how contracts are advertised, how award criteria are weighted, which remedies are available) and the substantive scope of procurement (the definition of a public contract and the grounds for exclusion). Parliament's reading argues for a return to the procedural core, leaving substantive decisions on the subject matter and the reference price of contracts to the national level and to the contracting authority itself.

Preserving the guiding principles

In order to avoid any misreading, paragraph 10 expressly preserves the principles that underpin public procurement:

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The three guiding principles (value for money, fair competition and anti-corruption measures) remain valid in the context of the forthcoming reform and must not be called into question.

Regulatory simplification cannot therefore be read as a watering down of the principles of competition, transparency, equal treatment and proportionality. The clause carries weight in any political reading of the text, since it defuses the objection that a reform geared towards flexibility would degrade the quality of the system.

Public-public cooperation: the major review

The institutionally most substantive block of the text concerns cooperation between public entities, including the cases traditionally referred to as in-house provision. Directive 2014/24/EU recognises them in article 12, albeit subject to restrictive conditions that administrative practice has interpreted cautiously.

Paragraph 24

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The 2014 reform explicitly recognises the right of public entities to provide and organise their services independently through their own institutions, undertakings or public undertakings. The direct provision of services by public or local entities, in-house provision of services and public-public cooperation are and must remain available options.

The legal nuance deserves attention. Parliament reaffirms the institutional autonomy protected by article 4.2 of the Treaty on European Union, from which paragraph 15 draws an express conclusion: local and regional authorities are free to choose between in-house provision, public cooperation and buying on the market.

Paragraph 62

This is the most far-reaching point of the proposal, in that it puts forward a substantial change to the regime in force:

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Recommends that the definition of public-public cooperation in the current directive be reviewed so as to recognise such cooperation as any contract or agreement concluded between two or more contracting entities. Calls on the Commission to consider the possibility of excluding cooperation between public entities from the scope of the public procurement directives where its purpose is the efficient performance of tasks, without further restrictive conditions.

Two significant technical changes can be drawn from the paragraph:

1. A broader substantive definition: public-public cooperation would be framed as any contract or agreement concluded between two or more contracting entities, removing the requirements in force today (minimum percentage of activity, absence of private participation, among others).
2. Exclusion from the scope: the point is not merely that cooperation falls outside the scope when it meets restrictive requirements, but that it would be excluded directly where it pursues the efficient performance of an entity's own tasks.

Exclusion grounds: an exhaustive list

Paragraph 40 calls for a technical reform of the exclusion grounds:

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The provisions on exclusion grounds should be streamlined by means of an exhaustive list and a clear distinction between mandatory exclusion grounds, intended to protect the public interest, and optional exclusion grounds, intended to protect the interests of contracting entities or contracting authorities.

The distinction between mandatory and optional grounds already exists in current law (articles 57.1 and 57.4 of Directive 2014/24/EU, transposed into articles 71.1 and 71.3 of Ley 9/2017, the Spanish Public Sector Contracts Act). Parliament adds two further requirements: exhaustiveness, in the sense that the list must be closed and must not allow creative additions by member states; and effectiveness, so that failure to comply with the labour and environmental legislation referred to in article 18.2 of Directive 2014/24/EU constitutes a genuine ground for exclusion.

Putting right minor defects

Paragraph 26 closes the simplification block with a proposal of high operational impact:

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Establish a general principle allowing minor irregularities to be regularised or clarified without the need to cancel the tender procedure, provided that this does not entail a substantial modification of the tender. This principle should be the rule and not the exception.

In practical terms, purely formal errors (a missing annex, a figure recorded with an obvious clerical error, an omitted stamp) should not expel a tenderer from the procedure where they can be put right without any substantive change to the tender. It is a reform of low conceptual impact and high operational impact on thousands of procedures a year.

Framework agreements and price revision

Paragraph 87 proposes further flexibility measures:

• Extending the maximum duration of framework agreements.
• Including price adjustment clauses for extraordinary increases arising from inflation, from the price of materials or energy, and from regulatory changes in labour matters.
• Wider use of the negotiated procedure for contracts awarded under a framework agreement.

These measures respond directly to the problems experienced by Spanish contracting authorities over the period 2022-2024, as a result of the volatility of materials and energy prices.

Questions left open

The text itself acknowledges that the resolution leaves open debates that the future directive will have to settle:

• The exact degree of simplification: which articles of the three directives can be deleted, which should be consolidated and which moved to interpretative communications.
• The precise scope of the exclusion of public-public cooperation: which conditions will remain and which will disappear, so as to avoid eroding competition.
• The interplay between European preference (paragraphs 2, 12 and 69) and the principles of market openness.
• The balance between flexibility and legal certainty (paragraph 10).

The ordinary legislative procedure that will open once the Commission tables its proposal, expected in the second quarter of 2026, is the channel in which those lines will have to take concrete shape.

Fuentes oficiales

Resolution P10_TA(2025)0174 - EUR-Lex

DO C/2026/1470 · 9 abril 2026

Directive 2014/24/EU - article 12, public-public cooperation

UE

Directive 2014/25/EU on the utilities sectors

UE

Legislative train file - European Public Procurement Act (second quarter of 2026)

Parlamento Europeo