EU public procurement for Turkish companies is beginning to resemble a Schengen application.
Before price and technical merit are assessed, bidders may now have to clear three gates: market access, foreign-subsidy scrutiny, and European-origin or technical-readiness requirements.
Three questions increasingly determine whether a company can pass through the gate:
Does its home country have reciprocal procurement access to the EU?
Where does its financing come from?
Where are its products and critical components manufactured?
The decisive question is no longer simply, “Can our bid win?”
It is now:
Will our bid be admitted, investigated or rejected before its commercial strengths are even considered?
The rules affecting 2027 tenders are already being written. Partnership, financing, certification and supply-chain decisions for 2028 are being made today.
What EU Public Procurement for Turkish Companies Now Tests
Sofia: The Investigation Opened, the Bid Disappeared
In February 2024, the European Commission opened its first in-depth public procurement investigation under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, or FSR.
The case concerned CRRC Qingdao Sifang’s participation in a Bulgarian Ministry of Transport tender worth approximately €610 million. The contract covered 20 electric push-pull trains, 15 years of maintenance and related services.
The Commission wanted to determine whether foreign financial contributions received by the Chinese state-owned manufacturer had enabled it to submit an unduly advantageous offer.
CRRC withdrew its bid, and the Commission closed the investigation without issuing a final prohibition decision.
No fine was required. The competitive balance of the tender had already changed.
Lisbon: The Consortium Stayed, the Supplier Changed
The Lisbon Violet Line case went one step further.
In November 2025, the Commission opened an in-depth investigation into a consortium led by Mota-Engil. The consortium’s subcontractors included Portugal CRRC Tangshan Rolling Stock.
In April 2026, the Commission allowed the consortium to remain in the procurement procedure, subject to commitments. The critical change was the replacement of CRRC with the Polish rolling-stock manufacturer PESA.
The Commission concluded that the substitution removed the distortion associated with the foreign subsidies. This became the first conditional decision following a completed in-depth public procurement investigation under the FSR.
The commercial lesson is larger than the individual companies involved.
The risk did not originate with the consortium leader. It entered the bid through an important subcontractor.
Changing one supplier altered the legal, financial and competitive profile of the entire offer.
Poland: A Warning for Turkish Manufacturers
The third case is closer to Türkiye.
The reported reason was that the company was established in a third country without a reciprocal public procurement agreement with the EU. PESA, Siemens Mobility and Škoda reportedly remained in the competition.
A publicly available official procurement decision setting out the contracting authority’s complete legal reasoning was not located in the sources reviewed. The precise basis for the exclusion should therefore be treated as reported rather than independently established.
Nevertheless, the commercial warning is difficult to ignore.
The first two cases involved a Chinese state-owned manufacturer.
The third involved a Turkish company that manufactures for European markets and has delivered rail vehicles in Europe.
It would therefore be dangerous for Turkish executives to assume that the emerging regime is directed only at China.
This visa is not issued according to the passport alone. It is issued according to the agreement, the financing structure and the bid file.
The Three Documents Turkish Companies Now Need
For EU public procurement for Turkish companies, describing this development simply as protectionism does not provide management teams with a usable strategy.
Turkish readers already understand the logic of a document-intensive border.
European Commission data show that approximately 1.26 million short-stay Schengen visa applications were lodged in Türkiye in 2025. Türkiye was the second-largest source of applications after China. Across all Schengen applications worldwide, the refusal rate was approximately 14.6%.
A comparable file review is now emerging in corporate form.
The procurement visa has three core documents.
Document One: The Foreign-Funding File
The Foreign Subsidies Regulation enables the European Commission to investigate financial contributions provided by non-EU governments where those contributions may distort competition in the EU internal market.
For public procurement procedures, notification is generally required where the estimated contract value is at least €250 million and the bidder, together with the relevant group companies and main subcontractors or suppliers, has received aggregate foreign financial contributions of at least €4 million from a single third country during the preceding three years.
Below that foreign-financial-contribution threshold, a declaration may still be required where the procurement value reaches the applicable threshold.
What Counts as a Financial Contribution?
A financial contribution does not mean only a cash grant.
It can include:
- Public loans
- Capital injections
- Guarantees
- Tax advantages
- Transactions with public bodies
- Export-credit financing
- Public insurance or guarantee support
An offer supported by an export credit agency is not automatically unlawful or distortive.
However, the nature, terms and market conformity of that support may have to be disclosed and examined.
The relevant question is not merely:
“Did the company receive state support?”
The commercially useful questions are:
Where did the support come from?
Was it provided on market terms?
Did it enable the company to submit an offer that competitors could not realistically match?
EU state aid and foreign subsidies are not the same regime. State support granted within the EU is governed by the Union’s state-aid framework. The FSR addresses potentially distortive support originating outside the EU.
The Inventory Must Exist Before the Tender
For Turkish companies, the practical consequence is clear:
The foreign-contribution inventory must be prepared before the tender, not reconstructed after the Commission asks questions.
This inventory should cover not only the bidder but also the relevant group companies, consortium participants, main subcontractors and main suppliers.
A legally compliant lead bidder may still inherit a disclosure or investigation problem through another participant in the supply chain.
Document Two: Reciprocal Market Access
The closest procurement equivalent to a visa-exemption list is the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Government Procurement, or GPA.
However, GPA access is not universal. It depends on the entities, sectors, contract categories and financial thresholds covered by each party’s commitments.
Türkiye is not among the current GPA parties. This makes reciprocal market access one of the first strategic tests in EU public procurement for Turkish companies.
The EU–Türkiye Customs Union facilitates the movement of goods. It does not, by itself, give Turkish companies a general and unconditional right of equal access to every EU public procurement procedure.
Kolin Changed the Legal Starting Point
The legal consequences became visible in the Court of Justice of the European Union’s October 2024 Kolin judgment.
The case arose from a Croatian railway infrastructure procurement challenged by the Turkish company Kolin.
The Court held that economic operators from third countries without an applicable international procurement agreement cannot rely on EU procurement directives to demand treatment equal to that given to EU bidders or bidders from countries covered by such agreements.
The judgment did not create an automatic ban on Turkish companies.
It did, however, end a commercially dangerous assumption:
“Once we are admitted to the tender, we have the same EU-law protection as an EU company.”
That is no longer a safe starting point.
A contracting authority may still admit a company from a non-covered third country. However, that company cannot automatically rely on EU procurement directives to claim equal treatment or challenge the award on the same legal basis as a protected bidder.
Qingdao Added an EU-Level Limit
The Court’s March 2025 CRRC Qingdao Sifang judgment added another important distinction.
It confirmed that the power to establish general conditions governing access for operators from non-covered third countries belongs to the EU, rather than separately to each Member State.
For corporate planning, the result is an uncomfortable combination:
There is no guaranteed right of entry.
There is no single blanket exclusion covering every tender.
Each procurement document, contracting authority, sector and applicable international agreement must be examined separately.
The International Procurement Instrument
The EU’s International Procurement Instrument adds a further reciprocity mechanism.
It allows the Commission to investigate restrictions faced by EU companies in third-country procurement markets and, as a last resort, impose score adjustments or exclusions affecting companies, goods or services from the country concerned.
The bitter detail for Türkiye is that one of the defining judgments in this emerging procurement landscape carries the name of a Turkish company.
For Turkish bidders, legal market access is no longer a footnote to be checked after the commercial offer is complete.
It is the first bid/no-bid question.
Document Three: European Production and Technical Readiness
The third document is quieter, but it may prove the most durable.
In March 2026, the European Commission proposed the Industrial Accelerator Act.
The proposal would introduce targeted European-origin and low-carbon requirements in selected strategic sectors and connect public procurement and public support more directly to manufacturing location and supply-chain content.
It remains a legislative proposal and may change during negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council.
For defined electric motor-vehicle categories, the current proposal would require assembly within the EU and, among other conditions, at least 70% EU-origin content by component value, excluding the battery.
The proposal also contains requirements relating to battery components, e-powertrain components and main electronic systems.
These motor-vehicle provisions should not be presented as a general rule already applying to railway rolling stock.
They do, however, reveal the policy direction:
European public money is increasingly being linked to production location, supply-chain resilience and measurable European value creation.
The Customs Union Nuance
The proposal contains potentially important provisions for countries that have a free-trade area or customs union with the EU.
Under defined origin requirements, content from those partner countries may be treated as equivalent to Union-origin content, subject to the proposal’s conditions, the EU’s relevant obligations and possible exclusions.
That could create opportunities for Turkish components.
However, the proposal’s separate requirement for final assembly inside the EU remains commercially significant for the motor-vehicle categories concerned.
In practical terms:
The Customs Union may help some Turkish inputs qualify.
It does not automatically guarantee that a completed vehicle manufactured in Türkiye will be treated as made in the EU.
Technical Compliance Is a Separate Border
For rail-sector companies, the technical file has a different vocabulary:
FRMCS.
ERTMS.
Railway cybersecurity.
Safety integrity.
Interoperability.
Energy performance.
Maintenance performance.
Life-cycle cost.
FRMCS is being developed as the successor to GSM-R. However, 2027 is not a single compulsory commercial migration date across Europe.
The two systems are expected to coexist during a transition period, while GSM-R remains relevant into the 2030s.
CLC/TS 50701 addresses railway cybersecurity. The IEC 62443 series addresses organisational and technical cybersecurity across the life cycle of industrial automation and control systems.
The time needed for certification, testing and authorisation depends on the product, its technical maturity, the required modifications, the test programme and the relevant approval bodies.
A universal “12-to-18-month rule” would therefore be misleading.
The underlying commercial reality remains valid:
A company that begins compliance work when the tender notice appears has often already begun too late.
The Four Costs of an Incomplete File
In EU public procurement for Turkish companies, the cost of poor preparation is not limited to losing one tender.
Companies may also lose market access, consortium positions, service revenue and long-term customer relationships.
Four recurring weaknesses deserve particular attention.
1. Assuming Equal Treatment
A strong price and a technically capable product do not answer the access question.
After Kolin, the legal regime applicable to the bidder can determine whether the technical and commercial proposal is considered at all.
Legal access must therefore be tested before bid preparation consumes engineering, sales and management capacity.
2. Concentrating the Supply Chain in One Country
A manufacturer that depends heavily on one third country becomes more exposed to subsidy, origin and resilience reviews.
The Lisbon decision demonstrates the point.
CRRC was not the consortium leader. Its position as a critical supplier was still sufficient to affect the entire bid.
A Turkish company may therefore create or inherit regulatory risk as:
- Lead bidder
- Consortium member
- Subcontractor
- Vehicle supplier
- Critical component supplier
The origin map is not a purchasing-department appendix.
It is part of product strategy.
3. Starting Certification Too Late
Safety, cybersecurity, interoperability and product-validation programmes can take months or years.
A company that waits for the tender notice may discover that it cannot:
- Secure test capacity
- Complete the required documentation
- Modify the product architecture
- Replace a critical supplier
- Meet the bid-validity period
- Price the necessary guarantees
A visa appointment cannot be scheduled for the day of departure.
4. Ignoring Life-Cycle Cost
The lowest purchase price can still win in some procedures. However, EU procurement rules also permit evaluation based on the most economically advantageous tender and life-cycle costing.
A lower acquisition price does not guarantee a lower total cost.
Consider a simplified example.
One train is offered for €10 million. A competitor asks €12 million. However, the first train costs €3 million more to operate and maintain over its working life.
The more expensive vehicle may therefore be the economically stronger offer.
The purchase price is no longer the whole price.
Companies need credible pre-tender data on:
- Energy consumption
- Maintenance intervals
- Spare-parts costs
- Availability
- Failure performance
- Software updates
- Long-term service capacity
Four Moves That Can Get the File Through
The controls are becoming stricter.
However, they are not completely unpredictable. The information required to test readiness is becoming more visible.
1. Connect the Regulatory Radar to the Tender Pipeline
FSR thresholds, GPA coverage, the Kolin judgment, International Procurement Instrument measures and emerging origin requirements are not abstract legal topics.
For every target tender, management should know:
Which international procurement commitments cover the contract?
Does the bidder have a protected right of access?
Can the contracting authority admit or restrict non-covered bidders?
Is an FSR notification or declaration required?
What public financial contributions have critical suppliers received?
How will origin be documented?
Which legal protections will actually be available if the bid is rejected?
2. Plan Backwards from the Target Market
A company targeting 2027 or 2028 procurement windows should begin its technical and compliance work now.
Even where final specifications are still evolving, the following cannot wait:
- Product architecture
- Document management
- Supplier qualification
- Testing strategy
- Cybersecurity governance
- Life-cycle-cost modelling
Compliance is not a certificate added to the finished product.
It is a design constraint.
3. Engineer the Product’s Origin
For every critical component, the company should know:
Where it is manufactured.
Who supplies it.
How its origin will be documented.
Whether an alternative supplier exists.
How much dependency is concentrated in one country.
Turkish companies should document the advantages that the Customs Union may provide while avoiding the assumption that it provides protections it does not.
This is not merely procurement work.
It is market-access engineering.
4. Build Real Value Inside Europe
A postal address or sales office is unlikely to solve the underlying problem.
Capabilities in assembly, engineering, testing, maintenance, spare parts, service or production can reposition a company from an external seller to a partner creating value inside the market.
The Hitachi Rail–PESA partnership announced in June 2026 illustrates the model.
The companies agreed to cooperate on high-speed and double-deck trains, technology transfer and local industrial capability.
Their announced bid model for the Polish high-speed programme envisages manufacturing the first 20 trains at Hitachi facilities in Italy, progressively increasing PESA’s production role and giving PESA responsibility for maintenance in Poland.
The lesson is not that every Turkish company must build a European factory.
The lesson is that European value must be real, measurable and relevant to the contract.
The Appointment Date Is Approaching
Whether the emerging access regime is fair will continue to be debated in Brussels, Ankara and industry conferences.
A company with a live tender pipeline has a more immediate question:
When the gate opens in 2027, will our file be ready?
The following work does not require governments to conclude a new international agreement:
- An origin map
- A foreign-financial-contribution inventory
- A certification timetable
- A life-cycle-cost model
- A European partnership strategy
These steps can begin today, including at SME level.
Success in EU public procurement for Turkish companies therefore depends on decisions made long before the procurement notice is published. Preparing a bid takes months.
Becoming eligible, credible and technically ready to submit it can take years.
Turkish companies should not begin searching for a door after the wall has already been built.
Legal access, financing transparency, supply-chain origin, technical compliance, life-cycle cost and the European operating model must be addressed before the tender notice is published.
For companies preparing for EU public procurement, the first commercial decision is no longer simply whether to bid.
It is whether the company, its partners and its supply chain can pass the access test.
RedApple works with companies that want to identify this difference before it appears in an exclusion decision.
The future of the bid is often decided before the tender begins.
Yiğit Belin
yigitbelin.com
RedApple
redapple.world
