The Development and Critical Junctures of EU Public Procurement Rules Vis-à-Vis the Prevention of Bid Rigging

This article argues that the prevention of bid rigging has not been factored into the policy design of the EU Public Procurement Rules in a systematic and consistent way. As it will be shown, the critical junctures of EU Public Procurement Rules did not emerge alongside the anti-cartel legislation in Europe, but entirely independently of the latter. As a result, the current European Public Sector Directive 2014/24/EU is not adequately collusion proof and there is still a long way to go.