Aggregate Purchasing: Public Contracts and Beyond

This contribution explores the legal possibilities of 'aggregate purchasing' for other rights than public contracts, such as concessions and authorisations. It addresses the question which rules in the new Public Contract Directive (Directive 2014/24/EU) may also apply to a coordinated award of concessions or authorisations. To this end, it examines whether these rules in the Public Contract Directive on joint procurement can be considered direct consequences of general principles of EU law, thereby justifying their application outside the scope of the Public Contract Directive. The other way around, this contribution analyzes some rules on joint authorisation of radio spectrum with the view of extending these rules to joint awarding of public contracts.