I saw on the cover of a portuguese financial newspaper a couple of weeks ago a piece about Infraestruturas de Portugal (the state-owned infrastructure public company) tendering a €1M contract for an AI tool called BIA - Bot de Inteligencia Artificial (Artificial Intelligence Bot) to be used to assist in
The Commission published last week the draft Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) proposal, after delaying it a couple of times. The draft is complex and puzzling at stages and frankly it lacks internal coherence since it includes four distinct approaches to achieve its stated objectives: speeding up permit-granting procedures for industrial
Every year since 2022 I update my table on the use of different public procurement procedures across the EU, based on data available on TED. Here's the table for procedures initiated up to the end of 2025. Year Open Restricted I Partnership C Dialogue CP + Neg Total 2014
On my post earlier today I mentioned not being able to access the national procurement portal. As it happens, I can if I use a Mac or an iOS device...but not on my linux machines. So, the portal is up and available for most, at least. Portugal publishes a
In the fall of 2025 I got wind that the Portuguese government was going to review the Public Contracts Code in short notice. This revision was described as a thorough affair and not a simple nip and tuck. In a discussion on Linkedin I was assured the draft would be
Work for long enough in a field and you will watch the same debates happen time and time again. This time around it is the idea of local preferences in public procurement. Now, for the particular debate I cannot say having been part of it multiple times, but some of
Iwas challenged by my good friend Marko Turudic on Linkedin to pick one (and only one) article of the public procurement Directive to change in the upcoming revision. I am going to be very obvious on my choice by picking Article 4 - thresholds. It should come to no surprise
I'm making my way through the Commission's recent report on public procurement and one of the things that caught my attention was the discussion on simplification. As the report rightly mentions, simplification was one of the objectives of the 2014 procurement reform. The problem is that
Since I last wrote about this case a couple of weeks ago, some more information has come to light. In a press conference soon after the accident the president of Carris informed that the company had awarded a 5 month contract to its existing contractor and the company uploaded the
The Guardian published an article yesterday claiming that Albania created an AI 'minister' that would be responsible for public procurement in the country. The logic behind this idea is to make Albania "a country where public tenders are 100% free of corruption" in the words of
Yesterday, the 140 year old Gloria funicular crashed into a building killing at least 16 people and injuring 21 more. The funiculars in Lisbon had operated for almost 1.5 centuries without any loss of life. Questions will be asked about the accident reasons and what was behind it. Finding
I received an email earlier this morning informing me of Chris Bovis passing and I am taking it as an opportunity to reflect on my memories with him. To me he was always generous and gracious and I remain grateful for his help and encouragement over the years. My first