Procurement Directives Revision
For the first entry into this series about rethinking the procurement Directives, I am starting with the choice of legislative instrument since it shapes all regulatory decisions contained within as well as (hopefully) their enforcement. With this proposed change I am not arguing that changing legislative instrument will magically solve
lowest price
I've recently come across this document commissioned (I think) by the EIC Forum analysing the legal issues affecting innovation in public procurement. While it is not a final report, there was a barrier mentioned here that attracted my attention: the preference for price only contracts in procurement. Time
conferences
In March and April I will be taking part in a couple of procurement related events. First off, the ERA annual procurement conference, to be held in Trier on March 20th and 21st. I have not visited Trier in many years and am very much looking forward to this one.
EU Commission
The Commission kickstarted late last year the process to revise the public procurement Directives from 2014, launching a call for evidence and public consultation to run until March 7th. While I am not optimistic about the outcome of the legislative process and where we may be headed in the regulation
electronic procurement
I've uploaded to SSRN yesterday the final version of a new paper on the evolution of electronic procurement under Directive 2014/24/EU. Here's the abstract: "Traditionally, public procurement has been conducted on paper without any formal involvement of technology or electronic features. In 2004,
Court of Justice
The CJEU laid down early this week a fairly important judgment on third country access to procurement. On case C-652/22 Kolin Inşaat Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret the Court concluded that economic operators from third countries neither party to the GPA nor with whom the EU has a deal are
Procurement Directives Revision
A couple of weeks ago a little birdie told me the Commission wanted to get the ball rolling on the revision of the procurement legal framework within the first 100 days of its term. Well, looks like they want to hit the ground running with the evaluation of the current
Portugal
Back in 2021 the then Portuguese government decided to make procurement more flexible as to ensure the Recovery and Resilience Facility money was spent quickly. In 2023 I warned about some of the risks that the reform had introduced here and here. Fast forward to 2024 and the Portuguese Audit
The Commission launched last week the PPDS, a service that is expected to aggregate data about public procurement in the EU. In essence it takes the data included in the eForms filled in by contracting authorities and makes it available to anyone. For example, it is possible to check for
Public Procurement
Last week, in her speech on the political guidelines for her new term as Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen announced the following in relation to public procurement: "We must also make better use of public procurement – which accounts for 14% of EU GDP. A 1% efficiency gain in
publications
I've just uploaded to SSRN my (draft) entry for the forthcoming Elgar Encyclopedia of EU Law. It's on general principles and here's the abstract: "Public procurement regulation within the EU is subject to a mixture of primary, secondary law and case law. This
Portugal
A flipside of having commented on the recent Portuguese general election party manifestos is that I now have a record of proposals. None paid much attention to procurement and certainly no one suggested a profound revision of the Public Contracts Code. Fast forward a mere 4 months and that is