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Recitals 1, 5, 31 and 32 of Directive 2014/24 state: ‘(1) The award of public contracts by or on behalf of Member States’ authorities has to comply with the principles of the [FEU] Treaty, and in particular the free movement of goods, freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services, as well as the principles deriving therefrom, such as equal treatment, non-discrimination, mutual recognition, proportionality and transparency. However, for public contracts above a certain value, provisions should be drawn up coordinating national procurement procedures so as to ensure that those principles are given practical effect and public procurement is opened up to competition. … (5) It should be recalled that nothing in this Directive obliges Member States to contract out or externalise the provision of services that they wish to provide themselves or to organise by means other than public contracts within the meaning of this Directive. The provision of services based on laws, regulations or employment contracts should not be covered. In some Member States, this might for example be the case for certain administrative and government services such as executive and legislative services or the provision of certain services to the community, such as foreign affairs services or justice services or compulsory social security services. … (31) There is considerable legal uncertainty as to how far contracts concluded between entities in the public sector should be covered by public procurement rules. The relevant case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union is interpreted differently between Member States and even between contracting authorities. It is therefore necessary to clarify in which cases contracts concluded within the public sector are not subject to the application of public procurement rules. Such clarification should be guided by the principles set out in the relevant case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The sole fact that both parties to an agreement are themselves public authorities does not as such rule out the application of procurement rules. However, the application of public procurement rules should not interfere with the freedom of public authorities to perform the public service tasks conferred on them by using their own resources, which includes the possibility of cooperation with other public authorities. It should be ensured that any exempted public-public cooperation does not result in a distortion of competition in relation to private economic operators in so far as it places a private provider of services in a position of advantage vis-à-vis its competitors. (32) Public contracts awarded to controlled legal persons should not be subject to the application of the procedures provided for by this Directive if the contracting authority exercises a control over the legal person concerned which is similar to that which it exercises over its own departments, provided that the controlled legal person carries out more than 80% of its activities in the performance of tasks entrusted to it by the controlling contracting authority or by other legal persons controlled by that contracting authority, regardless of the beneficiary of the contract performance. The exemption should not extend to situations where there is direct participation by a private economic operator in the capital of the controlled legal person since, in such circumstances, the award of a public contract without a competitive procedure would provide the private economic operator with a capital participation in the controlled legal person [with] an undue advantage over its competitors. However, in view of the particular characteristics of public bodies with compulsory membership, such as organisations responsible for the management or exercise of certain public services, this should not apply in cases where the participation of specific private economic operators in the capital of the controlled legal person is made compulsory by a national legislative provision in conformity with the Treaties, provided that such participation is non-controlling and non-blocking and does not confer a decisive influence on the decisions of the controlled legal person. It should further be clarified that the decisive element is only the direct private participation in the controlled legal person. Therefore, where there is private capital participation in the controlling contracting authority or in the controlling contracting authorities, this does not preclude the award of public contracts to the controlled legal person without applying the procedures provided for by this Directive[,] as such participations do not adversely affect competition between private economic operators. It should also be clarified that contracting authorities such as bodies governed by public law, that may have private capital participation, should be in a position to avail themselves of the exemption for horizontal cooperation. Consequently, where all other conditions in relation to horizontal cooperation are met, the horizontal cooperation exemption should extend to such contracting authorities where the contract is concluded exclusively between contracting authorities.’