Czech Business Community Calls for Transparency and Rationality in Public Procurement

Adoption of modernized public procurement directives is expected by early 2014. This step is considered to be a milestone in public procurement legislation as it would significantly simplify public procurement in the EU. In the Czech Republic, public procurement is governed by the Public Procurement Act, which has been recently amended.

The amendment, however, has brought some challenges which, in some cases, make the procurement process rather more complicated. In order to “correct” its problematic provisions, the technical amendment to the Act on Public Procurement has been proposed by the Czech government this year. Now, the question is what impact the revised directives will have on Czech public tendering? These and other issues related to the amendment of the Czech and European legislation on public procurement were the subject to the debate organized by CEBRE on 12 November, 2013 in Prague. According to Jaroslav Kračún of DG MARKT, the selection of public contracts should be governed by the principle of transparency and equal treatment. Among the main benefits of the revised directives, Kračún named simplification of the procurement process and reduction of administrative burdens, especially thanks to the introduction of the “European Single Procurement Document”.

Member States will also have a new duty: to monitor, whether public contracts are being carried out without any unfair practices. Vlastmil Fidler of the Czech Ministry for Regional Development thinks that the new set of procurement selection criteria could increase savings in public funds as the final price will include costs for purchase, use and maintenance of supplied service. “Implementation of the provisions guaranteeing legal and other advice in public tendering and other simplifying measures will probably bring acceleration and simplification of all relevant processes,” Samuel Král, lawyer of the Czech Chamber of Commerce, summed up the impact of the Directive on the current Czech legislation on public procurement.