EU Policy

Published on 09/09/2026 – 19:07 GMT+2•Updated
19:09

The European Commission unveiled on Wednesday a legislative proposal allowing EU public authorities to favour European companies in public procurement for key public services such as energy, water, railways, ports, airports and postal services.

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The move comes as European policymakers seek to shield the bloc’s market from China amid heated trade negotiations, as the EU grapples with a trade deficit with Beijing of roughly €1 billion a day.

Public procurement markets in Europe represent €2 trillion every year — 15% of Europe’s GDP.

“Public money must serve our collective interests,” Commission Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné said on Wednesday. “A public buyer will be able to organise his European preference and to exclude operators coming from countries with which we do not agree on public markets, both on the basis of the nationality of the company or on the base of the origin of the products.”

Under the Commission’s proposal, EU public authorities will be able to exclude non-European companies from public contracts when they come from countries that do not allow Europeans access to their own public procurement markets.

“A municipality will be very clearly able to exclude a Chinese company or a European company that offers Chinese products,” Séjourné added. “It will also be able to give more points and more visibility in his offer to European offers compared to competition offers.”

Swift reaction from China

The Commission proposes that at least 30% of the evaluation of supplies for public procurement rely on quality criteria and not only on price, which will also hit low-cost Chinese products.

“The new standard is the best quality-price ratio, and not just the price,” Séjourné said. “Our choices must also be able to meet social and environmental demands, but also sovereignty.”

The legislation, which still has to be adopted by the EU co-legislators — the European Parliament and the EU Council — prompted a swift reaction from China. In a statement released after the commission’s announcement, China’s Chamber of Commerce to the EU said that such a European preference could “distort a level playing field” for Chinese companies participating in the European public procurement market.

“Public procurement should not discriminate against suppliers or goods on the basis of the supplier’s nationality or the country of origin of the goods.”

In March, another proposal creating a European preference in EU strategic sectors such as green tech, cars and energy-intensive industries also prompted Chinese ire, with Beijing threatening to retaliate.

EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič will travel to China in early October, hoping to reach a political deal with Beijing to rebalance the trade relationship with the EU.

Published on 08/09/2026 – 14:29 GMT+2•Updated
15:54

Three MEPs have agreed in a report to be published Wednesday to tighten the requirements for foreign direct investment in the EU, restricting access to the European market for Chinese investors, Euronews has learned.

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The report comes from the European Parliament’s rapporteurs on the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, MEPs Christophe Grudler (Renew), Pierre Jouvet (S&D) and MEP Anna Cavazzini (The Greens). The act was presented by the European Commission last March and creates a European preference on the EU market to favour products made in Europe, in a move to protect strategic sectors of EU industry from foreign competition.

However, China has threatened several times to retaliate against the legislation, which is still under discussion, putting access to the EU market at the top of the agenda in some ongoing trade negotiations with Brussels.

The exclusive details of the report obtained by Euronews show that in sectors where China is dominant, among them electric vehicles, solar panels, critical raw materials and batteries, the three rapporteurs want to impose strict requirements on investments exceeding €50 million, a threshold lower than the €100 million initially proposed by the Commission.

For such investments, any investor from a country holding 40% of the sector’s global market share will have to meet six conditions: own no more than 49% of the share capital of the EU target; make the investment through a joint venture with an EU entity; transfer technologies to Europeans; ensure that at least 60% of the workforce consists of EU workers; reinvest at least 1% of annual revenue into research and development within the EU; and source at least 30% of manufacturing inputs from within the bloc.

A signal to Beijing

The rapporteurs have added to the Commission’s proposal investments in other sectors such as wind power, electrolysers and heat pumps, making it necessary for the investor to meet at least three of the conditions above.

The report also restricts access to public procurement and public support schemes to products made in the 27 EU member states across areas such as clean technologies, cars and energy-intensive industries.

The Commission will only be allowed to extend the scope to products coming from non-EU countries under strict conditions, such as the application of reciprocal access for Europeans to foreign countries’ public procurement.

This follows intense lobbying from EU foreign partners, which want their products to be recognised as “made in Europe” to access the EU market. Many, such as the United Kingdom, argued that EU value chains were too intertwined with their own market to exclude them.

The report by the three MEPs will now have to be adopted by EU lawmakers before discussions start with EU member states on this future legislation.

However, it sends a signal to China that Europeans will not give up in their attempt to protect the EU market from China’s aggressive industrial policy.