The European Commission’s proposal to consolidate the three existing EU public procurement directives into a single legislative act is a welcome step towards simplifying the procurement framework. However, for the water services sector, consolidation alone is not sufficient.
Today’s proposal (09.09.26) maintains the existing distinction whereby drinking water operators, including utilities providing both drinking water and wastewater services, fall under the more flexible utilities procurement regime, while operators exclusively providing wastewater collection and treatment remain subject to the classic procurement rules.
This misses an important opportunity to provide genuine legal clarity and coherence for the water sector as a whole. Drinking water and wastewater services share fundamental characteristics: both rely on fixed networks, require expensive asset-intensive and technically complex infrastructure, involve long-term investment cycles and are essential public services as well as critical infrastructure.
Maintaining two different procurement regimes within the same water services sector therefore risks perpetuating administrative complexity, legal uncertainty and inefficient procurement processes.
EurEau’s assessment of the transfer of the wastewater treatment sector under the utilities procurement rules is here.