Czech Public Procurements Act Needs To Be Corrected

Public procurements play a key role in improving entrepreneurial environment and conditions for business innovation, while research and development are crucial for increasing the competitiveness in the whole EU. The amendment of Public Procurement Act, which aimed to improve the system of public procurements in the Czech Republic and reduce the risk of corruption, came into force on the 1st of April 2012.

By improving the corruption and transparency aspect, it also introduced certain measures that complicate the whole process, e.g. insufficient definition of price/quality ratio for assessment of final products or the necessity to cancel the tender in case of unique contractor. This is more the case in the R&D sector. There are few exceptions for public procurement in the field of R&D, but certain conditions have to be met. For example, the product of the procurement has to be used solely for the purpose of research and development and procurer is not allowed to have any profit of it. Overall, the profitability of procurers is the main reason holding the public procurement contracting in this field back. Unfortunately, Czech law doesn’t allow using the pre-commercial procurement (PCP) by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic. Therefore a possible separation of PCP instrument from public procurement framework could be helpful.

Taking into account that public procurement rules are currently being revised on EU level, it is clear that the Czech Public Procurement Act will also have to undergo the changes in the near future. The necessity for changing the Act was endorsed by participants of CEBRE debate held in Prague on 12th February 2013.