Happy New Year! And the new threshold levels for the European Public Procurement Regulations came into force on January 1st. These define the contract value above which certain steps must be taken, such as “OJEU” advertising of contract opportunities.
The changes are based largely on currency fluctuations rather than any strategic consideration of the appropriate levels, so in the UK, the thresholds have increased slightly because the pound sterling has depreciated against the Euro in recent times. So probably the most commonly used threshold is that for Supplies & Services (except subsidised services contracts). In that case, for Schedule 1 bodies such as central government, the important value is £118,133; for other public bodies, £181,302 is the level. Contracts above that amount come under the full package of regulations.
The previous levels were around £106K and £164K, so this is a reasonably significant change in percentage terms, although the number of additional contracts that will now be let in a manner free of full EU regulations will be fairly small, we suspect.
For UK readers, there is more information available in a guidance note from Crown Commercial Service here. And if you want to go back to the source material, and look at all the thresholds in Euro terms, here is the relevant section of the European Commission website.