(1)

By Decision 2014/115/EU (2), the Council approved the Protocol amending the Agreement on Government Procurement (3) concluded in the framework of the World Trade Organization. The amended Agreement on Government Procurement (‘the Agreement’) is a plurilateral instrument and its purpose is to mutually open government procurement markets among its parties. The Agreement applies to any procurement contract with a value that reaches or exceeds the amounts set therein (‘thresholds’) and expressed as special drawing rights.

(2)

One of the objectives of Directive 2014/23/EU is to allow the contracting entities and the contracting authorities, which apply that Directive, to comply at the same time with the obligations laid down in the Agreement. To ensure that the threshold for concessions set out in Article 8(1) of Directive 2014/23/EU corresponds to the threshold for concessions established in the Agreement, it is necessary to revise the threshold set out in that Directive.

(3)

Article 9(1) of Directive 2014/23/EU requires that every two years the Commission revise the thresholds with effect from 1 January. Hence, the thresholds for the years 2024-2025 should apply as of 1 January 2024.

(4)

The calculation of the thresholds cannot start earlier than 1 September, due to data availability. According to Article 9(3) of the Directive, the revised thresholds in euro and their corresponding values in other national currencies of EU Member States must be published by the Commission in the Official Journal of the European Union at the beginning of November. In view of the above, and in order to meet the abovementioned deadline, the Commission makes recourse to the urgency procedure for adopting this Regulation.

(5)

Directive 2014/23/EU should therefore be amended accordingly,