“Pro­cure­ment Accel­er­a­tion Act”: turn­ing point in pro­cure­ment pol­i­cy?

Back­ground: From the draft to the Bun­destag

At the begin­ning of July, the Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Ener­gy (BMWE) pre­sent­ed a draft bill for a law to speed up the award­ing of pub­lic con­tracts (“Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment Accel­er­a­tion Act”) and invit­ed pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tions to comment.Like many oth­er experts, we at abante have sub­mit­ted a well-found­ed legal opin­ion, which you can view at the fol­low­ing link: State­ment on the “Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment Accel­er­a­tion Act” | abante.

The Fed­er­al Cab­i­net final­ly approved the draft at the begin­ning of August. Since then, the planned law has been on every­one’s lips and has also been a fre­quent, if not the dom­i­nant top­ic of dis­cus­sion at spe­cial­ist events: from the Bavar­i­an Pro­cure­ment Day to the forum ver­gabe talks in mid-Sep­tem­ber.

Now, on Octo­ber 9, 2025, the Bun­destag debat­ed the law on accel­er­at­ing the award of pub­lic con­tracts in its first read­ing. The leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tive is thus con­tin­u­ing to take shape.

The law is not uncon­tro­ver­sial

The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­men­t’s goal is wor­thy of all praise: pub­lic pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures must be accel­er­at­ed. In par­tic­u­lar, the award pro­ce­dures for major projects are to be com­plet­ed much faster. How­ev­er, asso­ci­a­tions and experts seem to be debat­ing whether the cur­rent path towards accel­er­a­tion is the right one. While sup­port­ers cel­e­brate the law as a nec­es­sary reform, crit­ics warn of an ero­sion of cen­tral prin­ci­ples of pub­lic pro­cure­ment law.

Abo­li­tion of the sus­pen­sive effect

The planned abo­li­tion of the sus­pen­sive effect of imme­di­ate appeals against deci­sions of the pub­lic pro­cure­ment tri­bunals is viewed par­tic­u­lar­ly crit­i­cal­ly. This change would mean that con­tract­ing author­i­ties would be able to pro­ceed with the award of con­tracts even if a com­pa­ny is still tak­ing legal action against a deci­sion.

Some experts see this as a com­pre­hen­sive dis­en­fran­chise­ment of bid­ders who want to defend them­selves against incor­rect deci­sions.

Between effi­cien­cy and the rule of law

The polit­i­cal thrust of the law — faster pro­ce­dures for urgent­ly need­ed infra­struc­ture projects — is under­stand­able. How­ev­er, in addi­tion to the abo­li­tion of legal pro­tec­tion instru­ments, the soft­en­ing of the lot prin­ci­ple also appears to raise ques­tions about the rule of law. Small and medi­um-sized com­pa­nies in par­tic­u­lar fear com­pet­i­tive dis­ad­van­tages, as large gen­er­al con­trac­tors could be favored in the future due to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of over­all con­tract awards.

What hap­pens next

Fol­low­ing the first read­ing in the Bun­destag, the law will now be dis­cussed in the com­mit­tees. The main focus there is like­ly to be on the demands of the Bun­desrat and crit­i­cism from the con­struc­tion indus­try. A deci­sion on the Pro­cure­ment Accel­er­a­tion Act is expect­ed by the end of 2025.

The com­ing weeks will there­fore show whether leg­is­la­tors can agree on a work­able com­pro­mise that both increas­es the speed of projects and main­tains the bal­ance between effi­cien­cy, legal pro­tec­tion and com­pe­ti­tion.

Do you have any ques­tions or sug­ges­tions? Then get in touch with us. We look for­ward to the exchange!