Public works tenders stall in Catalonia

BarcelonaThe Chamber of Contractors of Public Works of Catalonia notes a "loss of dynamism" in public contracting which, as they assure, "keeps the tendered volume far from the levels that would be necessary to reduce the accumulated deficit in infrastructure investment". In its quarterly report on tenders in Catalonia, the entity points to a "stalemate": between January and June, 1,714.1 million euros have been tendered, which represents an increase of 2.1% compared to the same period in 2025.

As explained to ARA by the president of the entity, Lluís Moreno, this trend was "to be expected" given the expectation of approving new budgets. For the second half of the year, with the accounts already approved, the president of the entity urges the Generalitat to "translate the budgets into tenders". Furthermore, he sets as an objective the finalization of major works such as the planned bypass between Olot and Les Preses.

The slight upturn, in fact, has been driven by the role of the central administration. While last year Madrid only tendered 219.2 million euros throughout Catalonia during the first half of the year, this year this figure has soared by 80.8%, to 396.3 million. During the first six months of 2026, the trend of recent years has begun to reverse: since 2022, the State has chained three years of reducing public works tenders in Catalonia. Despite this, Moreno assures that regarding state tenders there is still a long way to go, and that they only represent "40% of what they should be".

Generalitat and local administrations

For its part, the Generalitat has reduced its bidding by 2%, to 432.9 million euros, while local administration continues to be the main bidding driver (with an increase of 2.4%), with 838 million bid. Where there has been, however, a sharp decline has been in administrations classified as "others" – which include different public bodies made up of different entities, but which do not have a clear dominant administration, such as Fira de Barcelona–. In these, the bidding level has fallen by 76.5%, from 199 million during the first half of last year to 46.9 million this year.

Regarding territorial distribution, Barcelona has taken a large slice of the pie: the capital's demarcation accounted for 73% of the semester total, equivalent to 1,255.7 million euros. Tarragona (220 million euros), Girona (109.3 million) and Lleida (106.1 million) shared the rest of the bids. Regarding the main bidders, Infraestructures de la Generalitat de Catalunya was the one that budgeted the most money, with 209.5 million euros. It was followed by the airport operator Aena, with 165.5 million, and Bimsa (Barcelona d'Infraestructures Municipals), with 101.9 million.