Despite over 30 years of legal harmonisation, stubbornly low levels of cross-border public procurement continue to persist in the EU. In 2016 the European Commission sought new thinking to address this long-standing problem. Drawing on a number of cross-border studies undertaken by the authors, the reasons for low level cross-border procurement penetration are identified. A new action-based framework to increase cross-border procurement is proposed, as are new ideas to make it easier to identify public contracts outside national borders. Suggestions for reforming tender evaluation practices that could encourage SMEs to overcome their aversion to ‘home bias’ are proposed, alongside a ‘balanced scorecard tool’ to guide SMEs making critical cross-border public procurement decisions.
Keywords: SMEs, cross-border, EU public procurement, non-tariff-barriers, harmonisation