Earlier this week in Brussels, a new federal government was sworn in. As tradition demands, a coalition agreement was put before Parliament. The text will serve as a political guideline for the coming years (2025–2029).

Luckily for all procurement practitioners, the coalition agreement also talks about public procurement (in Belgium’s federal state system, this remains largely a federal competence, so the text is also of importance for regional governments).

What are the highlights?

Simplification

As per usual, the federal government hopes to simplify procurement legislation (within the European framework). Given the ongoing Commission’s public consultation, the usual prelude to a new generation of directives, it will be interesting to see how the Belgian government intends to achieve this simplification. One of the examples given is a possibility to take into account bidders’ past performance during the bid evaluation. This has indeed been a recent topic of debate, as participation in tender procedures is dwindling (and the number of tenders with only one bidder or even no bidders at all is on the rise), and contracting authorities are often forced to work together with companies they were not satisfied with in previous contracts. It will be interesting to see whether Belgium will be able to reverse a trend that seems to be happening EU-wide (see the European Court of Auditors Special report 28/2023: Public procurement in the EU | European Court of Auditors)

Access by SMEs

The previous government already took action to improve access to procurement contracts for SMEs, resulting in the Law of 22 December 2023, which introduced a broader regime of advance payments, made bid indemnities mandatory in some cases and improved transparency by imposing disclosure of provisional rankings at the opening of the bids. However, the current government coalition is even more ambitious, aiming at 80 percent participation by SMEs (with a 60 percent success rate) by the end of the legislature . This will be realized through a more focused division in lots; a preference for quality-related award criteria, a possibility to have price review clauses in every procurement contract, etc. The Law of 22 December 2023 led to some discussion among practitioners, so it will again be interesting to see how the federal government aims to top up the existing measures. The additional ambition to pay on time and to respect the new unified payment period of 30 calendar days will perhaps be more effective for attracting SME participation. (The Royal Decree of 12 August 2024 replaces, from 1 January 2025, the old verification and payment periods, both of which can be up to 30 days (i.e., 60 days in total), with a single payment period of maximum 30 days).

Shorter supply chain

The federal government wants to provide a legal framework that allows using a shorter supply chain as a technical specification in supply contracts for foodstuffs. Taking into account the EU level discussions on distance as an (environmental) award criterion, a non-discriminatory approach of this ambition will be key (at least if this measure is also to be introduced for supply contacts with a value above the EU thresholds).

Higher threshold for negotiated procedures without prior publication for supply contracts for agriculture, livestock, fishery, forestry and related product

In Belgium, the current general threshold for negotiated procedures without prior publication is €143,000 (VAT excluded). As everyone knows, the current EU threshold for publication of supply contracts is €221,000 (VAT excluded). Hence, there is some wiggle room, but the question remains whether this is enough to have any effect.

Defense procurement

Also in this domain the federal government aims to simplify and, in essence, review the defense and sensitive security procurement Directive 2009/81, allowing for a further embedding of R&D and production in this sector within the EU/EEA. In my opinion, Belgium will primarily join the Commission’s efforts in this respect (see Defense procurement - European Commission). It will therefore seek partnerships with other member states (e.g., in the sixth-generation joint strike fighter program ), since evolutions on a NATO level will force Belgium to increase its defense spending and it would be senseless to do this as a stand-alone buyer (which was never the case in the past). The major focal point, when reading the coalition agreement, is obtaining a social and economic return for the home market (which is understandable, given Belgium’s longstanding investments in defense sector suppliers).

Less external consultancy

Finally, the federal government aims to significantly reduce expenditures on external consultancy, especially relating to core governmental tasks, e.g. maintenance of IT systems. The aim is to keep the necessary technical, legal and material expertise on board and to reduce dependence on external service providers. Whenever external consultancy is considered, a cost-benefit analysis will need to demonstrate that outsourcing is more beneficial than taking on the task in-house. This ambition is not surprising: In the recent past, several studies have shown that (federal) government agencies spend significant funds on a wide array of external services and this, unfortunately, is not always with the required attention to centralization or pooling (see for example the most recent report of the Belgian Court of Audit Federal Public Procurement – Summary of 2023-2024 audits | Court of Audit). That said, draconian measures are not to be expected. A seamless cooperation between strong internal support services and truly specialized external advisors or consultants can only lead to more productive interactions and more successful procurement.

Of course, the coalition agreement is just a start. It will be very interesting to see how the federal government will implement its ambitions towards public procurement, especially in times of changing EU frameworks and swiftly evolving international circumstances, especially regarding defense, safety and security and energy policy.

We’ll keep watching the skies. Want to learn more? Questions? Please feel free to contact Jens Debièvre