EU Commission to revise bidding rules: More Europe, less China
The European Commission plans to rewrite the rules governing public procurement. This change would make it easier to exclude companies from outside the EU from bidding on contracts. The Commission has Chinese firms in mind among others. EU Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné cited BYD’s electric buses as an example, though these are manufactured in Hungary for EU customers.
EU Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné
Image: European Commission
The EU Commission has proposed a plan to modernize and simplify EU procurement law. Although it is currently only a draft — requiring approval from the EU Parliament and member states — the proposal carries significant impact. It also addresses important issues in electric mobility, as the new rules would apply to future EU-wide tenders for electric buses and charging infrastructure by public transport operators, as well as to the procurement of electric vehicles for municipal fleets and their affiliated services, such as waste management companies.
The idea behind the proposal to modernize and simplify the EU framework for public procurement is to enable agencies and publicly owned enterprises to award such contracts more based on strategic considerations. Among other things, the focus is on allowing companies from third countries outside the EU — such as China — to be excluded from procurement processes much more easily in the future than before.
EU Commissioner cites BYD buses as an example
Stéphane Séjourné, the EU Commissioner for Industrial Strategy, cited a specific example when introducing the plans: “After this reform is adopted, it will no longer depend on the European Commissioner whether there are BYD buses in Berlin.” Although the local public transport operator BVG does not use any electric buses from this Chinese manufacturer, Séjourné was likely referring to the order of 200 electric buses from BYD by Deutsche Bahn, which caused a lot of controversy last December. At that time, German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) called for “more local patriotism” and said the order annoyed him.
Although it has always been the case that the cheapest bid does not necessarily win the contract, Deutsche Bahn took into account factors such as energy consumption, maintenance costs, and other quality criteria in addition to the purchase price. It also considered the location of production sites, the scope of the service network, and the ecological, economic, and social responsibility (CSR) of future suppliers. Aside from BYD, which won only five percent of the contract volume, the largest share went to the German manufacturer MAN.
However, the EU Commission now states that excluding companies from third countries in procurement processes must be further simplified. This aims to establish “European preference criteria” that will ensure public spending supports safety, resilience, and fair competition within the EU by reducing harmful dependencies, combating unfair practices, and strengthening industrial capacity in Europe. These “European preference criteria” are not intended to be mandatory but rather a legally sound option for tenders. Additionally, quality criteria are expected to carry more weight in the future than mere price considerations.
A strategic tool already used by other countries
"It is a strategic lever — and that in a time when particularly China, India, the United States, and all today’s great powers are using this tool as part of their own industrial and economic strategies," said Séjourné, who is considered a close ally of French President Emmanuel Macron.
There is supposed to be a list of countries that will be treated equally to EU states because they in turn grant EU companies access to tenders. As of now, Britain and the U.S. are definitely on this list, while China is not.
BYD example poorly chosen: Electric buses from Hungary
But back to the Chinese automaker BYD: Although it was a striking example from Séjourné and likely intended as a jab at the German federal government, which has so far refused to restrict market access for Chinese companies, it remains unclear whether BYD could be excluded from future electric bus tenders in the EU. Its electric buses for the European market have been produced since 2017 at BYD’s factory in Komárom, located in the EU member state of Hungary. Since then, BYD has created hundreds of jobs there, primarily for EU citizens.
The roughly 200 electric intercity buses that Deutsche Bahn ordered from BYD at the end of 2025 are also set to be manufactured there. This case shows that “Chinese manufacturer” and “vehicle produced in China” are not equivalent, especially since the buses are made by a Hungarian BYD subsidiary that regularly participates in EU tenders. Thus, in fact, no directly Chinese company is the contracting party either.
The planned new EU procurement rules would not automatically exclude such a BYD bus. The draft makes a distinction between the company’s origin and the goods’ origin: it is likely that, under current rules, whether an electric bus manufactured in Hungary qualifies as goods of EU origin according to EU customs regulations will be decisive. Additionally, public purchasers may go on to require a certain percentage of EU-origin components.