ABSTRACT
Public procurement is gaining importance on the trade negotiation agenda, both under the aegis of the WTO and at bilateral level in various preferential trade agreements. These trends reflect the economic importance of public procurement markets in terms of GDP and trade flows, as well as the fact that to date a relatively small part of these markets has been committed internationally, both at the bilateral and multilateral levels. The reason why we have an EU-wide regulation of public procurement is to open up the public sector markets to economic operators based in other Member States. The first modern manifestation of localism worth referring to is the introduction of social considerations in public procurement. Financial thresholds are the second current manifestation of localism as a trade barrier. When it comes down to localism as a trade barrier, the issue of language is not usually taken into account.
