European Union – Public procurement. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling deciding that art 1(2)(a) of Directive (EC) 2004/18 should be interpreted as meaning that an agreement concluded by two regional authorities, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, on the basis of which they adopted constituent statutes forming a special-purpose association with legal personality governed by public law and transferred to that new public entity certain competences previously held by those authorities and henceforth belonging to that special-purpose association, did not constitute a 'public contract'.