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Recitals 2, 5, 28, 31 and 33 of Directive 2014/24 state: ‘(2) Public procurement plays a key role in the Europe 2020 strategy, set out in the [European] Commission Communication of 3 March 2010 entitled “Europe 2020, a strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” …, as one of the market-based instruments to be used to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth while ensuring the most efficient use of public funds. For that purpose, the public procurement rules adopted pursuant to Directive 2004/17/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council [of 31 March 2004 coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors (OJ 2004 L 134, p. 1)] and Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council [of 31 March 2004 on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts (OJ 2004 L 134, p. 114)] should be revised and modernised in order to increase the efficiency of public spending, facilitating in particular the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in public procurement, and to enable procurers to make better use of public procurement in support of common societal goals. There is also a need to clarify basic notions and concepts to ensure legal certainty and to incorporate certain aspects of related well-established case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. … (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. … … (28) This Directive should not apply to certain emergency services where they are performed by non-profit organisations or associations, since the particular nature of those organisations would be difficult to preserve if the service providers had to be chosen in accordance with the procedures set out in this Directive. However, that exclusion should not be extended beyond that strictly necessary. It should therefore be set out explicitly that patient transport ambulance services should not be excluded. In that context it is furthermore necessary to clarify that CPV [Common Procurement Vocabulary] Group 601 “Land Transport Services” does not cover ambulance services, to be found in CPV class 8514. It should therefore be clarified that services, which are covered by CPV code 85143000‑3, consisting exclusively of patient transport ambulance services, should be subject to the special regime set out for social and other specific services (the “light regime”). Consequently, mixed contracts for the provision of ambulance services in general would also be subject to the light regime if the value of the patient transport ambulance services were greater than the value of other ambulance 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 public 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. … (33) Contracting authorities should be able to choose to provide jointly their public services by way of cooperation without being obliged to use any particular legal form. Such cooperation might cover all types of activities related to the performance of services and responsibilities assigned to or assumed by the participating authorities, such as mandatory or voluntary tasks of local or regional authorities or services conferred upon specific bodies by public law. The services provided by the various participating authorities need not necessarily be identical; they might also be complementary. Contracts for the joint provision of public services should not be subject to the application of the rules set out in this Directive provided that they are concluded exclusively between contracting authorities, that the implementation of that cooperation is governed solely by considerations relating to the public interest and that no private service provider is placed in a position of advantage vis-à-vis its competitors. In order to fulfil those conditions, the cooperation should be based on a cooperative concept. Such cooperation does not require all participating authorities to assume the performance of main contractual obligations, as long as there are commitments to contribute towards the cooperative performance of the public service in question. In addition, the implementation of the cooperation, including any financial transfers between the participating contracting authorities, should be governed solely by considerations relating to the public interest.’