Reform of the Clean Vehicles Directive: From performance criteria to target values

The paper sets the reform of the Clean Vehicles Directive in the broader context of the European environmental policies and inclusion these horizontal policies into public procurement rules. The analysis of effectiveness of that directive is provided from the overall European point of view as well as from the point of view of examples of transposition and different approaches to transposition in the Member States. The Clean Vehicles Directive underwent substantial reform in 2019 which removed case-by-case assessment of environmental impacts of particular vehicles and introduced new approach by setting minimum quantitative criteria for procurement of ‘clean’ vehicles. Limited scope of the directive aligned to the thresholds of application of the public procurement directives, remained.