Entering a public market through a distributor: one pattern, 34 countries

Every country page in our hub ends with a numbered section, "How to enter, step by step": seven or eight moves for a manufacturer that wants to reach public buyers in that country through a local distributor. There are 34 of them — the 27 EU Member States, Iceland and Norway, Switzerland, and four countries whose awards sit on national portals rather than TED (the UK, Ukraine, Serbia and Türkiye). Read side by side, they follow one pattern. The moves are the same; their order shifts a little, and the detail inside each move changes at every border.

Putting it simply: everywhere, the route runs the same way. Find the distributors that already win your category, check whether buyers purchase it through a central body, give the distributor documents in the buyers' language with proof of conformity, choose a first contact the local law allows, and arrive at the meeting with terms that survive a multi-year contract. What changes is who buys centrally, which language a bid must be in, how a first e-mail is treated and where the record of awards is kept.

The six moves that recur across the pages

1. Find who already wins your category

Every page has this step, and it starts from the record, not from a directory. Above the EU thresholds, a buyer must send a contract award notice no later than 30 days after concluding a contract or framework agreement (Article 50 of Directive 2014/24/EU). The notices appear on TED, the online version of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the EU. For 2026 and 2027 the thresholds for supplies and services are EUR 140,000 for central government authorities and EUR 216,000 for other contracting authorities (Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152).

TED's search filters by the country where the buyer is based, by notice type and by CPV code (CPV codes explained). Below the thresholds, each page names the national portal to search. A company that wins your category repeatedly, for several buyers, belongs on the shortlist (what an award tells you about a distributor).

2. Check whether the category is bought centrally

EU law lets Member States allow buyers to acquire supplies from a central purchasing body, and a buyer that does so "fulfils its obligations" under the Directive (Article 37). If a central body covers your category, the companies on its agreements already hold that business, so they go to the top of the list.

3. Translate what buyers and distributors will read

Technical sheets, instructions, safety information and price lists, in the language the bid will be written in. A distributor will not translate your file for you.

4. Assemble the conformity file

CE marking is required only for products covered by EU rules that mandate it. Where it applies, the manufacturer signs an EU declaration of conformity and keeps it for at least 10 years. Every page asks for a conformity file (outside the EU, the local equivalent), often with test reports against the standards local buyers name (certifications that open doors).

5. Choose the lawful first contact

Decide how the first message may arrive before you write it. It is the move that changes most from country to country (see below).

6. Prepare the meeting, then start small

Margin that survives a price-driven tender, territory, exclusivity, lead times, spare parts, and prices you can hold for the life of a framework agreement, which may run for up to four years except in duly justified cases (Article 33). Many pages end with a trial: one range, one region or one tender, then the next award notice (what a distributor expects).

What changes at the border

The first e-mail

The ePrivacy Directive requires prior consent for marketing e-mail to subscribers who are natural persons, and asks each Member State to ensure that the legitimate interests of other subscribers, such as companies, are sufficiently protected (Article 13(5)). Each chose its own rule. Three pages show the spread:

• France: under CNIL's guidance, a business-to-business e-mail needs no prior consent to a company's generic address, and to a named professional address only when the person was told, when the address was collected, that it could be used for prospecting, the message relates to their job and they can object free of charge. In practice: write to the generic address the distributor publishes, about what the company sells, with a simple way to object.
• Germany: § 7(2) UWG treats e-mail advertising without the addressee's prior express consent as an unreasonable nuisance, and the e-mail rule makes no distinction between consumers and businesses. The first contact is a letter, a trade fair or an introduction.
• Bulgaria: the Commission for Consumer Protection (KZP) keeps a register of the e-mail addresses of legal persons that do not want unsolicited commercial messages, and sending to them is prohibited (Article 6, Electronic Commerce Act). KZP's online check takes up to 100,000 addresses per request; run it before every mailing.

The full map is in cold B2B e-mail, country by country.

Central purchasing: a catalogue, an obligation or an open door

• France: UGAP, which calls itself France's leading public central purchasing body, offers close to 700,000 products and services for "un achat immédiat en dispense de procédure": the buyer orders without running a procedure of its own.
• Latvia: under Article 17 of the Public Procurement Law, direct-administration bodies must buy goods and services in groups set by the Cabinet of Ministers from or through the designated central purchasing body once their contracts in a group reach EUR 1,000 within 12 months. For municipalities the figure is EUR 10,000.
• Finland: Hansel usually chooses framework suppliers for a four-year contract period, and the suppliers stay the same throughout. Its dynamic purchasing systems, by contrast, stay open for their whole duration to suppliers that meet the requirements, as the Directive provides (Article 34). A framework you missed is closed until the next round; a dynamic system can be joined now.

On the Belgian, Bulgarian, Czech, Estonian and Lithuanian pages we say plainly that we could not confirm from an official source how central purchasing works or admits suppliers. There, the buyer named on each award notice is the guide.

The language of the bid

Portugal's Public Contracts Code requires the documents that make up a bid to be written in Portuguese (Article 58), although the procedure may admit some technical documents in other languages, and since Decree-Law No. 177/2026 other supporting documents may be in a foreign language unless the procedure rules say otherwise. At the other end, Malta's electronic procurement system, ePPS, works in English. Most pages sit nearer the Portuguese end: budget for a full translation.

What the record shows, and when

• Poland: public finance sector bodies and other state units publish a plan of the procedures they expect to run in the year within 30 days of adopting their budget or financial plan, in the Public Procurement Bulletin and on their own website (Article 23 with Article 4 points 1 and 2 of the Public Procurement Law). Latvia asks the same within a month of budget approval (Article 18). A plan shows what a hospital intends to buy before the tender.
• Romania: the Directive does not require a notice for each contract under a framework agreement and lets Member States require quarterly grouped notices instead (Article 50(2)). Romania does: buyers group them every quarter and send them within 30 days of the quarter's end (Article 145(2), Law 98/2016). Those notices show which distributor keeps delivering after the first award.

Outside the customs union, or outside TED

Iceland and Norway are in the European Economic Area, but the EEA Agreement does not cover the customs union. Goods cross a customs border, so both pages settle delivery terms and import handling before price.

In the United Kingdom, notices about new procurements have been published on Find a Tender since 24 February 2025, above and below threshold, except below-threshold notices in Scotland and below-threshold contracts of Northern Ireland's own authorities. Cresques does not read Find a Tender, so the UK page shows how to search it yourself.

What this means for a manufacturer

• Run one sequence everywhere. Record, central purchasing, language, conformity, first contact, meeting. Then take the details from the country page.
• Choose the channel before the message. The same e-mail is routine in Paris and unlawful in Munich.
• Check central purchasing before chasing single buyers. A catalogue, an obligation or an open dynamic system changes who you should talk to first.
• Treat translation and conformity as entry costs, not as tasks for after the first meeting.

That is the work Cresques is built for. Today you create a market from a country and the CPV categories you sell, and the materials reader proposes those categories from a brochure or a website. The market shows the evidence from award notices, showing who already sells them there. Company profiles with an AI-researched role and first messages drafted in the local language are live; e-mail alerts on new awards come with paid plans. Cresques does not help anyone bid. Each country page lists its sources and date; check them before you rely on a step.