Article 75 - Union restrictions for third-country non-covered economic operators, goods, services and works

Article 75 appears to be a simple article, giving the European Commission the powers to adopt the necessary delegated acts to mandate the application of the European preference included in Article 73 in accordance with the conditions imposed by Article 141. What is optional and to the discretion of the

Article 74 - Origin

Article 74 appears to be a simple one at first glance, as it simply points towards different pieces of legislation where to identify the origin of economic operators, subcontractors and goods. For services and works it mostly follows the rules for economic operators/subcontractors and goods. Marko's entry

Article 73 - European preference requirements

Article 73 creates the operational requirements that public buyers are to consider when implementing European preference requirements. Effectively, this article allows but does not mandate the discrimination of economic operators, goods, services and works. This is an Article that requires a careful side-by-side reading with Articles 71 and

Article 72 - Restrictions on covered economic operators, goods, services or works

This article provides the Commission with wide ranging powers to introduce amendments to Article 70 via delegated acts, effectively excluding economic operators, goods, services or works from certain third-countries from being considered covered. As such, if the Commission were to exercise this power, for example, it could bar American

Article 71 - Determining the scope of coverage for third-country covered economic operators, goods, services or works

Article 71 establishes a barebones set of rules on how to determine the scope of coverage for third country economic operators, goods, services and works. It is composes of two main elements: an online tool to be developed by the Commission (paras 1 and 3) and an obligation for public

Reflecting on the new nature of procurement as a system in the Public Procurement Act proposal

I have long described the architecture of procurement rules within the EU as a system designed not to enable great procurement but instead for impede really bad procurement. In essence it is a painting by numbers or a 'follow the recipe' approach that allows people with limited knowledge

20 years a migrant

I forgot to celebrate earlier this month the twentieth anniversary of my departure from Portugal. What was supposed to simply be a 3 month stay in Barcelona to get my head out of Portugal after an intense couple of years as a junior lawyer with too much responsibility but not

Article 70 - Covered economic operators, goods, services or works

Article 70 is the first article of Chapter 5, that is the chapter on European preference. This first article establishes which economic operators, goods, services or works are considered to be within from the Union (broadly considered) to warrant non-discrimination and equal treatment. In the absence of 'covered&

Starting the commentary to the Public Procurement Act proposal

As announced last week on Linkedin, myself and Marko Turudic will be commenting the Public Procurement Act proposal. This will be done in a similar fashion to the work me and Albert Sanchez-Graells did with the transposition of Directive 2014/24/EU to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That

The Public Procurement Act proposal: mixing up simplification with flexibility

I had an interesting exchange last night on Bluesky about the Public Procurement Act proposal and its purported simplification. There I simply stated that 'simplification is yet to be seen.' My good friend Albert nailed it in the head on Linkedin: There is a difference between reducing the

Some data on Portuguese procurement from IMPIC's 2025 report

IMPIC published recently its yearly report on procurement activity in Portugal for 2025 and as usual it is full of interesting bits of information. Here are a few I thought worth bringing up. Bear in mind that the data is aggregated and not broken down between above and below thresholds.

Notes on the visit to the Commission and the draft Public Procurement Act proposal

I had the pleasure of visiting the Commission yesterday alongside a number of procurement colleagues to meet with the team working on the Procurement Act and the Executive Vice-President of the Commission, Stephane Sejournee. The meetings were held under Chatham House rules meaning that while we can talk about