European procurement strategies are undergoing a significant evolution as the EU strives to bolster its economic security and meet ambitious climate goals. No longer driven solely by cost-efficiency, public purchasing is increasingly used to reinforce supply chain resilience, ensure critical raw material independence, and advance sustainability. In recent years, public procurement rules have been deliberately realigned with the EU’s strategic objectives.
This shift means that when European governments spend taxpayers’ money, they are now encouraged, and in some cases obliged, to consider how their contracts can make supply networks more robust, reduce dependencies on foreign inputs, and support environmental and social targets. These three priorities are interconnected and together they are shaping the future of procurement policy in Europe.
Building Resilience into Supply Chains
Supply chain resilience has become a watchword in Europe following a series of crises that exposed vulnerabilities, from medical equipment shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic to energy supply shocks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In response, the EU has started to weave resilience criteria and contingency mechanisms into its procurement framework. One major development is the Internal Market Emergency and Resilience Act (IMERA), adopted in late 2024, which establishes a toolbox of measures to address supply emergencies. Under IMERA, the European Commission can coordinate joint procurements among member states for critical goods in a crisis and even require faster permitting or priority orders for certain vital products. Notably, the Act explicitly treats EEA EFTA states as equal participants in such joint purchases, reflecting a pan-European approach to resilience.
Beyond emergency legislation, resilience thinking now informs day-to-day procurement planning. European authorities are increasingly evaluating the supply chain risk of each procurement: for instance, assessing whether a supplier base is overly concentrated in one country or if alternative sources are available. This is evident in sectors like healthcare, energy and technology. The EU’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) has coordinated joint procurement agreements for vaccines and medical countermeasures with almost 40 European countries (all EU and EEA members among them) to guarantee equitable access and diversified sourcing.
In the energy domain, the EU created an AggregateEU platform for the collective buying of natural gas in 2023, which successfully helped member states (plus neighbors like Ukraine and Serbia) secure gas from a broader range of suppliers to replace disrupted Russian flows. Such cooperative procurement initiatives highlight a paradigm change: instead of each country separately seeking the cheapest offer (often from a single dominant supplier), Europe is leveraging its collective market power to achieve secure and resilient supply chains, even if that sometimes means paying a premium for reliability. At the policy level, the forthcoming revision of EU procurement directives is expected to codify resilience as a consideration for contracting authorities. The European Commission’s 2025 competitiveness roadmap explicitly calls for mandatory “resilience” criteria in the main procurement legislation for certain strategic sectors.
Pursuing Raw Material Independence
Closely related to the resilience agenda is the drive for greater independence in critical raw materials. Europe’s green and digital transformations have illuminated a strategic Achilles’ heel: the EU relies heavily on imports of key raw materials (like lithium, rare earths, cobalt, and graphite) often from a single or very limited set of external suppliers. Recognising this risk, the EU launched the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) in 2024 as part of a broader strategy to secure a sustainable supply of these inputs. The CRMA sets concrete targets for reducing dependency, such as mining at least 10% of the EU’s own annual needs for critical materials and recycling 25% of annual consumption, while capping reliance on any single non-EU country to less than 65% by 2030.
Achieving these targets will require significant public and private investment – and public procurement is viewed as a key lever to pull. European procurement policy is increasingly being used to stimulate the development of domestic and diversified raw material supply chains. One innovative tool under development is a joint purchasing platform for critical raw materials, inspired by the model used for joint gas purchases.
By aggregating demand for, say, battery-grade lithium or rare earth magnets across European manufacturers, the EU can negotiate long-term supply contracts with producers in multiple friendly countries or support new extraction and processing ventures within Europe. Such joint procurement not only could secure better terms, but also send strong market signals to investors about stable European demand – encouraging the establishment of mines, refining facilities or recycling plants in the EU and allied nations. In parallel, more traditional procurement criteria are being tweaked to favor supply security. For example, tenders for electric vehicle batteries or wind turbine components might include scoring for supply chain robustness or European content, indirectly incentivising suppliers to use raw materials from European or at least diversified sources.
The EU is also funding Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs) in areas like batteries and microelectronics, which often involve public procurement commitments to buy the resulting innovative products, thereby anchoring a local value chain from raw material inputs to finished technology. The economic rationale is clear: without intervention, Europe’s climate transition could simply trade one dependency for another (for instance, moving from foreign oil to foreign lithium). By embedding raw material independence into procurement decisions, Europe hopes to create a virtuous cycle where public demand helps kick-start domestic supply capacity. This does not mean autarky, the EU will continue to import many resources, but rather smarter diversification. Over time, the expectation is that European industries will be less at the mercy of geopolitical supply squeezes or price spikes in critical inputs, because a greater share of those inputs will either come from European sources or from a pool of reliable partner countries.
Prioritising Sustainability through Procurement
Sustainability is the third pillar reshaping European procurement, encompassing both environmental stewardship and social responsibility. The EU’s commitment to become climate-neutral by 2050 and to foster a circular, low-carbon economy has placed public procurement at the forefront of implementing these goals. With governments collectively spending over €2 trillion on procurement each year in the EU, greening this expenditure has massive potential impact. Over the past decade, concepts like Green Public Procurement (GPP) and socially responsible procurement have moved from soft recommendations to gradually more binding measures. The 2014 EU procurement directives allowed environmental and social criteria in tender awards; now the trend is to make such criteria mandatory where possible. As noted in the European Commission’s Clean Industrial Deal plan, the upcoming procurement law reforms will “include mandatory sustainability…criteria for certain strategic sectors”, ensuring that considerations like carbon footprint, energy efficiency, recyclability, and fair labour practices are no longer optional add-ons but standard requirements in public contracts.
Already, specific EU laws have introduced green procurement obligations. The Clean Vehicles Directive requires public authorities across Europe to meet minimum quotas for zero-emission vehicles when they purchase buses, trucks or municipal cars, directly creating demand for clean transport solutions. Green criteria are also built into the EU Energy Efficiency Directive, for instance, central governments must buy products and buildings that meet high energy-efficiency standards, even if slightly pricier upfront, to save energy and reduce emissions over the long run. Meanwhile, the new Circular Economy Action Plan and proposed Circular Economy Act emphasize procurement of products that are durable, repairable and made of recycled materials, so that public spending drives markets for circular products and materials.
Each of these measures pushes contracting entities to think beyond the immediate transaction: a cheap offer that carries a large carbon footprint or generates excessive waste is increasingly less likely to win a contract under EU rules. The sustainability shift in procurement is not limited to environmental aspects. It also entails social criteria, for example, ensuring supply chains are free of forced labour, or that contractors uphold gender equality and inclusion in their workforce. Some EU member states have pioneered “social procurement” by reserving certain contracts for social enterprises or requiring bidders to implement apprenticeship programs, and the European Commission encourages the spread of these practices. By combining green and social requirements under the umbrella of “sustainable procurement”, Europe aims to lead by example, using public funds to nurture markets for sustainable goods and fair business practices. Importantly, this evolution has the effect of normalising sustainability as a competitive factor: companies know they must innovate and improve their sustainability profile if they wish to win lucrative public contracts, which in turn accelerates broader economic change toward the EU’s climate and social objectives.
Integrating the Three Priorities: A New Strategic Paradigm
Resilience, raw material independence and sustainability are often mutually reinforcing aims, and the European Union’s procurement strategy is increasingly integrating all three. For instance, investing in recycling (a sustainability measure) can also reduce import dependence on critical materials and create a more resilient supply within Europe. Likewise, choosing a supplier with a diverse, Europe-based supply chain not only mitigates geopolitical risk but may also have a smaller carbon footprint due to shorter transport routes. Policymakers speak of “triple transformation”, digital, green, and social and procurement is now seen as a lever to achieve this trio of transformations in unison. The EU’s recent policy roadmaps acknowledge that using procurement in this strategic manner involves balancing new objectives with traditional ones like cost-efficiency and competition.
Indeed, a recurring challenge is ensuring that adding these criteria does not overly complicate procurement procedures or shut out small firms. To address this, the coming reforms also aim to simplify rules and enhance access for start-ups and SMEs, so that pursuing sustainability and resilience does not come at the expense of innovation or inclusiveness.
In sum, European procurement strategy is evolving from a passive, value-for-money stance to an active instrument of industrial and sustainability policy. By embedding supply chain resilience, raw material security, and environmental/social criteria into purchasing decisions, the EU and its member states are reshaping markets – steering them to deliver not just goods and services, but also strategic value. The transformation is already visible in procurement notices across Europe: tenders now routinely reference climate impact, supply continuity plans, recycled content, and local social value alongside price. Over the next decade, this trend is set to deepen. European procurement officials will be at the forefront of implementing the continent’s strategic vision, ensuring that every euro of public spending contributes to a more secure, sustainable, and self-reliant Europe.
Sources:
Revision of the EU procurement directives. Social and environmental criteria must be given greater consideration
“Buy European” criteria in public procurement should include all 30 EEA States
