The European Commission's Regulation on a new Common
Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) entered into force on 15 September
2008.
The CPV is the EU-wide classification system for public
procurement contracts. It is a comprehensive list of goods and
services, each having its own CPV code. The CPV standardises the
references used by contracting authorities and entities when
describing the subject matter of their contracts.
The currently applicable public procurement directives make use
of the CPV obligatory. It is important to note however that the
annexes to the public procurement directives refer to the CPV codes
in place in 2004 when the directives were adopted, but that the
relevant CPV codes are now those from the new CPV Regulation. Care
should be taken to cross-refer the CPV codes listed in the annexes
to Directives 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC and to the national
implementing legislation – in the UK the 2006 Public
Contracts Regulations and the 2006 Utilities Contract
