New preprint on SSRN – ”Exclusive Competence Without Comprehensive Legislation: The Constitutional Deficit in the Treatment of Third-Country Economic Operators in EU Public Procurement”

The Public Procurement Directives are in the midst of revision and we expect the Commission to publish a draft Regulation in early September. Since everyone likes to be told what to do (especially by an academic), I decided to write a paper on what should the Commission do with the participation of third-country economic operators…

Read more New preprint on SSRN – ”Exclusive Competence Without Comprehensive Legislation: The Constitutional Deficit in the Treatment of Third-Country Economic Operators in EU Public Procurement”

Why Only Construction Exclusions Work: More on the Croatian Third-Country Economic Operator Exclusions Dataset

The previous post on this blog reported a dataset of 185 Croatian public procurement procedures published between December 2025 and May 2026, in which contracting authorities had stated their intention to exclude third-country economic operators in accordance with the post-Kolin amendment to the Regulation on Procurement Documentation and Tender in Public Procurement Procedures. The combined…

Read more Why Only Construction Exclusions Work: More on the Croatian Third-Country Economic Operator Exclusions Dataset

From Freshwater Fish Burgers to Big Infrastructure Projects: An Empirical Update on Third-Country Economic Operator Exclusions in Croatia 18 Months after the Kolin Judgment

It has become unconfirmed ”common knowledge” that Croatian contracting authorities are not excluding third-country economic operators, and that it’s still business as usual. This seemed especially to be the case in late September 2025, when I submitted the manuscript for my upcoming book to Edward Elgar. A lot of time has passed since then, and…

Read more From Freshwater Fish Burgers to Big Infrastructure Projects: An Empirical Update on Third-Country Economic Operator Exclusions in Croatia 18 Months after the Kolin Judgment

Local Content Just Won’t Die – And Poland’s Government Is Making It Worse

A brief disclaimer before I get into this: what follows is based on two news reports – one from XYZ’s Poland Unpacked newsletter and one from MILMAG – covering the launch of Poland’s “Local Content: For the Benefit of Poland” initiative on 9 April 2026. If the statements attributed to Prime Minister Donald Tusk and…

Read more Local Content Just Won’t Die – And Poland’s Government Is Making It Worse

Buy European, But How? What the Public Consultation on the Revision of the Public Procurement Directives Tells Us About European Preferences and Third-Country Economic Operators

On 27 March 2026, the Commission published the Factual Summary Report on the Public Consultation on the Revision of the Public Procurement Directives. Of the 1,037 responses received, the overwhelming majority came from business-related stakeholders — companies and business associations together make up 47% of respondents, with public authorities at 13%, trade unions at 11%…

Read more Buy European, But How? What the Public Consultation on the Revision of the Public Procurement Directives Tells Us About European Preferences and Third-Country Economic Operators

Registration Open: “Geopolitics and Public Procurement” Conference — Zagreb, 1 July 2026

The University of Zagreb Faculty of Law and the Croatian Employers’ Association are pleased to announce that registration is now open for the international conference “Geopolitics and Public Procurement”, to be held on 1 July 2026 at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb (Trg Republike Hrvatske 3, Lecture Room III). Attendance is free. Register…

Read more Registration Open: “Geopolitics and Public Procurement” Conference — Zagreb, 1 July 2026

The Industrial Accelerator Act and Public Procurement: A Step Forward, Several Steps Sideways

The European Commission published its proposal for the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) on 4 March 2026. The proposal establishes a framework of measures for the acceleration of industrial capacity and decarbonisation in strategic sectors. Pedro Telles has already published a very useful reflection on the proposal on his blog (https://www.telles.eu/some-preliminary-impressions-on-the-industrial-accelerator-act-proposal/), which I recommend reading alongside…

Read more The Industrial Accelerator Act and Public Procurement: A Step Forward, Several Steps Sideways

New paper – Transparency or Efficiency? The Prevalence of Arbitration Clauses in Croatian Public Procurement Draft Contracts

New paper out! I spent weeks scraping 17,695 public procurement notices from Croatia’s electronic procurement platform (EOJN) and going through 6,409 draft contracts to answer a question nobody has empirically tackled in Croatia before: how often do contracting authorities actually choose private arbitration over regular courts for resolving public procurement contract disputes? The short answer…

Read more New paper – Transparency or Efficiency? The Prevalence of Arbitration Clauses in Croatian Public Procurement Draft Contracts