(See Pedro’s thoughts on Article 77 here)

Article 77 is the last article of the ‘European preference’ chapter, and it can be seen as a ‘coordination’ provision. This is clearly established in the PPA Explanatory memorandum:

This Regulation serves as a horizontal framework for European preference requirements and has been designed so as not to conflict with the body of Union legislation which are sector-specific, and which establish mechanisms for preference or restriction based on the origin of economic operators or the specific goods or services offered in the context of public procurement. This applies to rules that have already been adopted, such as Regulation (EU) 2024/2803 on the implementation of the Single European Sky, or more recent proposals such as the Industrial Accelerator Act (COM 2026/0068) which are currently in the legislativeprocess. Therefore, the general rules of this Regulation apply unless the sector-specific act provides otherwise, including regarding the determination of origin.

Moreover, in order to avoid excessive fragmentation of the legislative framework and to   ensure a coherent set of rules on public procurement, this Regulation also serves as a model and a basis for future Union legislative acts establishing preference mechanisms based on origin. This concerns compatibility with international agreements that include a public procurement dimension, the way in which the origin of economic operators, goods, services and works is defined. Any future European preference rules relating to public procurement should be based as a starting point on the rules regarding the actual preference requirements set out in this Regulation, and only adapted where necessary on account of the specific sectors they will cover.

In line with this, it is necessary to separate two different situations: where legislation with ‘EU preference’ provisions predate the PPA proposal, and situations where new legislation will be drafted and adopted after the PPA enters into force.

The Commission gives two examples of existing legislation (in force or still as proposals): Single European Sky Regulation and the Industrial Accelerator Act proposal (IAA). Article 77 therefore allows divergence from the PPA proposal’s ‘European preference’ chapter in those acts, and the Explanatory memorandum even explicitly mentions a take on origin rules that differs from the one in Article 74 of the PPA proposal. This can be seen as the Commission deciding to leave existing rules alone, but this approach will have its problems, as will be shown below.

The situation is more interesting with potential future legislation that may contain/reference ‘European preference’ rules. While the Commission clearly wants all of those to be in line with the PPA proposal, it still (also very clearly) allows subsequent proliferation of various different approaches in sectoral legislation. The Commission sees the PPA proposal’s ‘European preference’ chapter ‘as a starting point’ and allows their adaptation ‘where necessary on account of specific sectors they will cover’. One million sectoral files all over again.

But if new sectoral legislation regulating public procurement market access and participation is adopted in the future, Article 77 establishes the guiding rule what to do. This leads us to a few possible outcomes:

• The sectoral legislation in question just mentions the implementation of ‘European preference’, and refers completely to the relevant provisions of the PPA proposal. This is probably the preferred outcome, and the least problematic.
• The sectoral legislation in question contains specific ‘European preference’ provisions acting as lex specialis, but those are not in conflict with provisions from the PPA proposal, and therefore PPA proposal provisions is used to fill the lacunae.
• The final situation would be if the new sectoral legislation contained provisions in conflict with the ‘European preference’ chapter of the PPA proposal. This would mean that, as lex specialis, those new provisions would derogate the conflicting provisions of the PPA proposal – further fragmenting and complicating the application of the EU procurement market access rules.

My hope is that the ‘unless regulated otherwise in the Union legislation in question’ part of Article 77 will not be actually used. The ‘European preference’ chapter is already complex enough as is, riddled with various levels of discretion and discretionary derogations. On top of that – the Commission has the authority toadopt delegated act that can revoke covered status, or make any of the European preference requirements in Article 73 mandatory (well unless public buyers exercise their wide discretion bot to apply even mandatory ‘European preference’ provisions under Article 76). Adding further fragmentation via sectoral legislation would introduce more unwelcome complexity.

A good example of this would be the interaction of potential future legislation diverging from the PPA proposal and Article 76 public buyer exceptions. If such an act imposes mandatory ‘European preference’ and contains no exceptions – is Article 76 of the PPA proposal applicable? And what if it does contain its own exceptions – are those exhaustive?

But to end on a positive note – the cited excerpt from the Explanatory memorandum and Article 77 as such do not give licence to ignore EU’s international WTO GPA and other FTA obligations.

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