The Internal Market Committee at the European Parliament backed the public procurement "concession" contracts in a vote held the 24 of January. According to MEPs, these "concession" contracts enable public authorities to transfer the economic risk of projects such as building roads bridges or sports arenas to the private sector. MEPs stressed that the attribution of a concession is not synonymous with privatisation of public services.

The "Concessions" directive is part of a package of four public procurement directives to uniform EU-wide rules. The others are the "Classic", "Utilities" and "Third Market Access" (or "Reciprocity") directives. Internal Market Committee in the European Parliament backed public procurement "concession" contracts, because according to MEPs, these contracts enable public authorities to transfer the economic risk of projects such as building roads bridges or sports arenas to the private sector. In December 2011, the European Commission stressed that reforming the European public procurement legislation is a priority to the Commission.

MEPs also agreed to simplify the procedure for awarding such concessions, by retaining only two mandatory stages for the authorities: to publish the call for tenders at the start and the award notice at the end. This should give the authorities more flexibility to negotiate the best deal. Moreover, they stressed that concession procedure documents should be made available and processed electronically.

The draft rules would apply to concession contracts worth €8 million or more. These draft rules require concession award criteria to be objective, but would allow public authorities to include environmental, social, gender-equality or innovation-related ones. MEPs also voted to exclude the following services from the rules, due to their specificity: gambling activities resulting from exclusive rights, civil defence and protection, danger prevention, air transport services and media services. However MEPs voted not to exclude the water sector from the directive.