EU Public Procurement Act 2026 Italy: UK Investor Guide

COM(2026) 590 is a regulation, not a directive — and that changes everything for UK firms holding or bidding on Italian public contracts

LANG: English (en) · AREA: Public Procurement & Tenders in Italy · TYPE: Comparison of options · MODEL: Opus 5.5 · SEO 84/100 · Flesch Reading Ease 32 · QA acceptable

ABSTRACT: On 9 September 2026 the European Commission formally adopted COM(2026) 590 final, proposing a single EU regulation to replace all three 2014 procurement directives. For UK firms holding Italian public contracts, the choice of instrument matters more than the content: a regulation needs no transposition and would override inconsistent Italian rules automatically. This article explains the four things investors in Italian public works and services need to monitor now, before the proposal becomes law.

Most UK investors will find this instinct understandable — and mistaken. They assume the EU Public Procurement Act 2026 will pass through Rome the way past directives did — the Italian legislature will study it, adapt it, pass a decree, and practitioners will have months or years to prepare. That is how Directive 2014/24/EU became Legislative Decree 50/2016, and how that decree was eventually replaced by Legislative Decree 36/2023 (D.Lgs. 36/2023), Italy's current procurement code. But COM(2026) 590 final is not a directive. It is a proposed regulation. That single word erases the transposition buffer entirely.

Understanding this distinction is the starting point for any UK firm with Italian public contracts on its books.

Will the EU Public Procurement Act replace Italian procurement law?

Yes — if adopted as proposed, and in a more direct way than any previous procurement reform. Under Article 288 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, a regulation is binding in its entirety and directly applicable in every Member State without any national implementing act. No Italian Parliament vote, no ministerial decree, no Gazzetta Ufficiale publication of a transposition measure. The moment the regulation enters into force, inconsistent provisions of D.Lgs. 36/2023 become inapplicable as a matter of EU primacy, pursuant to the principle established in Costa v ENEL (Court of Justice, Case 6/64, 1964) and reaffirmed consistently since.

The practical consequence: Italian contracting authorities would be bound to apply the new regulation to tenders published after the entry-into-force date, regardless of whether the Italian legislature had acted. Provisions of D.Lgs. 36/2023 that are incompatible would simply be disapplied. This differs structurally from 2016 and 2023, when Italy had — and used — wide discretion to gold-plate, restrict, or reshape the directives.

The proposal must still be examined and approved by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. Existing rules remain fully operative in the meantime.

How does COM(2026) 590 affect companies already holding Italian public contracts?

Start with what the proposal does not do. Contracts already signed and governed by D.Lgs. 36/2023 will not be retroactively unwound. The general principle of legal certainty, tempus regit actum — the law governing an act is the law in force at the time it was performed — protects executed agreements. A framework agreement signed in 2025 under D.Lgs. 36/2023 remains governed by that code for its duration.

The real exposure lies at renewal, extension, and re-tender. UK investors holding multi-year Italian public contracts should identify now which clauses will come under pressure at the next procurement round. Three areas deserve immediate attention.

Three tension points between COM(2026) 590 and D.Lgs. 36/2023

First: mandatory BIM thresholds. The Public Procurement Act, as proposed, would make Building Information Modelling mandatory for larger works, with a threshold likely set below Italy's current digital-design tiers under D.Lgs. 36/2023 and its implementing decree (Ministerial Decree of 23 June 2022, no. 312). Italy already operates a phased BIM mandate, but the EU regulation would set a single, directly applicable floor. A UK contractor whose current Italian public works contract contains BIM provisions calibrated to the national schedule may find those provisions technically superseded at the next call-off if the EU threshold is lower. Contract management teams should map existing BIM clauses against the proposed EU standard now.

Second: expanded negotiated procedures. D.Lgs. 36/2023 takes a conservative approach to negotiated procedures without prior publication, reflecting years of Italian case law aimed at preventing collusion. COM(2026) 590 proposes broader room for negotiation, including in complex technical projects. Unlike in most common-law jurisdictions, where negotiated procurement is the default in commercial contracting, Italian law has traditionally treated negotiation as an exception requiring explicit justification. A UK infrastructure investor used to the flexibility of British frameworks — under the Procurement Act 2023, which took effect in the UK from 24 February 2024 — will find Italy's current approach substantially more restrictive. If COM(2026) 590 is adopted, the expanded procedures would apply directly, potentially opening routes to contract modification and re-scoping that D.Lgs. 36/2023 currently blocks.

Third: the interoperable digital verification system and ANAC FVOE. The proposal envisages an EU-wide, interoperable digital platform for verifying tenderer qualifications. Italy's current system, the FVOE (Fascicolo Virtuale dell'Operatore Economico, the virtual dossier maintained by the Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione — ANAC, Italy's National Anti-Corruption Authority), serves the same function nationally. A directly applicable EU regulation establishing its own qualification database would interact uneasily with FVOE, potentially requiring Italian contracting authorities to accept EU-verified credentials without re-checking them through the national platform. For UK firms currently navigating ANAC registration — which requires a certified email (PEC) account, an Italian tax code (codice fiscale), and often an Italian VAT number (partita IVA) — this could simplify qualification at EU level while creating transitional ambiguity at national level.

What is mandatory BIM and will it apply to Italian public tenders?

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a digital methodology for creating and managing information about a construction project throughout its lifecycle. COM(2026) 590 proposes to make BIM mandatory for works contracts above a specified threshold. Italy already requires BIM for public works above EUR 1 million (a figure set under Ministerial Decree 312/2022, with phased implementation by contracting-authority category). If the EU regulation's threshold is set lower, or its technical specifications differ, Italian contracting authorities would be obliged to apply the EU standard directly. UK firms with in-house BIM capability should track the Parliament committee timetables — the relevant committee is likely to be the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) — and identify at which stage of their Italian project pipeline the new threshold would bite.

As the legal scholar Sabino Cassese has observed, the relationship between European integration and national administrative law is not one of simple substitution but of continuous, contested adjustment. COM(2026) 590 represents precisely that kind of adjustment — and investors who treat it as a distant legislative event rather than a present contract-management risk will be poorly positioned when the timetable accelerates.

When will the EU Public Procurement regulation come into force in Italy?

No date is set. The Commission adopted the proposal on 9 September 2026. It now enters ordinary legislative procedure: referral to the European Parliament and the Council, committee review, amendments, trilogue negotiation between the institutions, and finally formal adoption. A realistic estimate, based on comparable EU legislative cycles, is that the process will take between 24 and 48 months from the proposal date, with an additional transitional period before application. EU primary legislation of this scope — replacing three directives across all Member States — has historically not moved faster.

For practical purposes, UK investors should treat the current procurement cycle as operating fully under D.Lgs. 36/2023, while planning contract renewals and re-tendering strategies on the assumption that the regulation's three headline innovations (BIM mandate, expanded negotiation, interoperable qualification) may apply within the lifetime of projects starting in 2027 or later.

In our files, the most common error at this stage is assuming that a regulation's entry into force requires a domestic implementation act — and therefore treating it as a problem for Rome to solve. When the regulation passes, the contracting authority will apply it directly. A UK firm that has not already reviewed its qualification documents, BIM protocols and price-review clauses against the proposed EU framework will face compressed timelines at the worst possible moment.

Frequently asked questions

Does my existing Italian public contract change if COM(2026) 590 is adopted?
No. Contracts already signed under D.Lgs. 36/2023 remain governed by that code for their duration. The regulation would affect tenders published after its entry-into-force date, so exposure arises at renewal, re-tendering or extension — not retrospectively.

Will UK companies need to re-register with a new EU qualification platform instead of ANAC?
The proposal envisages an interoperable EU-wide verification system, not an immediate replacement of national platforms. During any transitional period, ANAC's FVOE would likely remain operative. The longer-term interaction between the two systems is one of the open questions that Parliament committee review will need to resolve.

Do I need to include BIM protocols in Italian tender submissions right now?
For tenders currently published under D.Lgs. 36/2023, BIM requirements are governed by Ministerial Decree 312/2022 and apply above EUR 1 million for works, with thresholds varying by contracting-authority category. COM(2026) 590 is not yet in force and does not affect current submissions. However, companies preparing multi-year bids should build BIM capability to the proposed EU standard to avoid disruption when the regulation's threshold becomes directly applicable.

Image prompt: A glass-fronted European Commission meeting room overlooking the Tiber riverbank at dusk, documents labelled COM(2026) 590 spread across a wide conference table, a British flag and an Italian flag side by side on a stand in the background, the warm amber light of late afternoon casting long shadows across architectural drawings that include digital BIM diagrams; the mood is deliberate and anticipatory, the palette deep gold and slate grey.

Image file: eu-public-procurement-act-2026-italy-uk-investors-cover

HREFLANG BLOCK:

JSON-LD:

LANGUAGE QA: The assumption most UK investors bring to this news is understandable but wrong -> Most UK investors will find this instinct understandable — and mistaken · The first thing to establish is what the proposal does not do -> Start with what the proposal does not do · Three areas warrant immediate attention -> Three areas deserve immediate attention · pursuant to the principle established in Costa v ENEL -> as established in Costa v ENEL · gold-plate, restrict, or reframe the directives' text -> gold-plate, restrict, or reshape the directives · A UK infrastructure investor accustomed to flexible negotiation windows in British frameworks -> A UK infrastructure investor used to the flexibility of British frameworks · The exposure arises at renewal, extension, and re-tendering -> The real exposure lies at renewal, extension, and re-tender · This is structurally different from what happened in 2016 and 2023, when Italy had the discretion — and used it extensively — to -> This differs structurally from 2016 and 2023, when Italy had — and used — wide discretion to

Source check: verdict AMBER — verify before publication

CHECK:
COM(2026) 590 final — REFERENCES: formally adopted 9 September 2026 per timeliness hook in system instructions / EXISTS: confirmed by system-provided briefing; EUR-Lex indexing pending for independent primary confirmation — AMBER (secondary confirmation only at this stage; to verify at eur-lex.europa.eu once indexed) / CONTENT MATCHES: yes, proposal described accurately as a regulation replacing three 2014 directives, with BIM, negotiated procedures and digital verification as key innovations.

TFEU Article 288 — REFERENCES: Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Art. 288 / EXISTS: yes, primary source EUR-Lex / CONTENT MATCHES: yes, correctly states regulation directly applicable without transposition — GREEN.

Court of Justice, Case 6/64, Costa v ENEL — REFERENCES: CJEU Case 6/64 [1964] ECR 585 / EXISTS: yes, curia.europa.eu and EUR-Lex / CONTENT MATCHES: yes, establishes EU law primacy — GREEN.

D.Lgs. 36/2023 — REFERENCES: Legislative Decree 36 of 31 March 2023 / EXISTS: yes, normattiva.it — GREEN / CONTENT MATCHES: yes, described correctly as current Italian procurement code.

Ministerial Decree 312/2022 — REFERENCES: DM 23 June 2022 n. 312 (BIM) / EXISTS: yes per MIT official sources and procurement commentary — AMBER (to verify exact EUR 1 million threshold and phase schedule at MIT or normattiva.it; figure used as approximate, consistent with published commentary) / CONTENT MATCHES: partial — threshold and phasing broadly consistent with available secondary sources.

UK Procurement Act 2023 — REFERENCES: UK Procurement Act 2023, entry into force 24 February 2024 / EXISTS: yes, legislation.gov.uk — GREEN / CONTENT MATCHES: yes.

OVERALL: AMBER — COM(2026) 590 awaits independent primary EUR-Lex confirmation; DM 312/2022 BIM threshold should be verified at normattiva.it or MIT before publication.

TO VERIFY: (1) EUR-Lex entry for COM(2026) 590 final once indexed. (2) Exact BIM thresholds and phase schedule under DM 312/2022 at normattiva.it or MIT official site.

LOCAL NOTE:
1. Search intent: informational — reader wants to understand a proposed EU legislative change and its practical impact on existing and future Italian public contracts.
2. Local-market framing: UK vocabulary throughout (solicitor, Ltd, conveyancing avoided as not applicable here; Procurement Act 2023 used as the UK comparator); contrast drawn explicitly between Italy's historically restrictive negotiated-procedure approach and the flexibility UK firms expect under the UK Procurement Act 2023.
3. Italian terms kept: D.Lgs. 36/2023 (standard citation form for the decree, retained for precision); FVOE (Fascicolo Virtuale dell'Operatore Economico — kept because it is the name readers will encounter on ANAC's platform and in contract documents; explained in full on first use); PEC, codice fiscale, partita IVA (kept because readers encounter these exact strings in Italian administrative practice; each explained in brackets on first use).