On April 1, FIC provided info to the EU Commission and experts on the area of public procurement in Serbia.

EU organized this joint meeting with FIC and NALED to gain feedback for the assessment on the vulnerabilities of the public procurement system and oversight system. EU was represented by the DG NEAR representative Azra Ikovic and EU member states experts. The assessment by the EU will include info on the legal and institutional provisions, key institutions in the area, big procurement entities in selected sector, as well as concrete review of cases of the Republic Commission for Protection of Rights in Public Procurement Procedure and the Administrative Court. Focus is on the sectors of road and rail construction, water supply and waste water management sector, urban construction projects, transport, health sector and IT products and services. FIC Delegation included I&I Committee Vice President Marija Novakovic, LC Vice President Jelena Vukić Šuljagić, authors of the FIC PP on Public Procurement Ivan Milošević from JPM Law Office and Stefan Đerić from SGS Beograd, as well as FIC Executive Director Ana Tozzi. FIC presented the views outlined in the White Book and in the Position Paper provided to the Government in October 2018. Some of the key proposals include: to clearly state the criteria on the international organizations and financial institutions whose public procurement procedures can be applied instead of the provisions of the Law; to exclude the disposition stating that the estimated value of the purchase doesn’t have to be published; to determine the criteria for abnormally low bids as a bid with a price or cost at least 20% lower than the estimated value of the public procedure or average price of all submitted bids; to regulate by a by-law the execution of the public procurement contract; and not to prevent the state authorities to file a request for the protection of rights on the basis of a notice from a business in the public procurement procedure.