Abstract

The new directives are to stimulate changes aimed at making negotiated procedures more attractive. The draft of the new public procurement law includes provisions aimed at increasing flexibility and effectiveness of negotiations with publication and competitive dialogue, which may contribute to greater utilization of those procedures in the future. The expansion of the object of negotiations with publication and extension of the scope of permissible amendments in offers submitted under competitive dialogue is evaluated positively. The efficiency of both procedures should be favoured by transparent rules of selection at the qualitative selection stage and the conduct of negotiations by stages with the possibility to limit negotiated solutions. At the same time, however, unclear confidentiality regulations and – first of all – the new approach to the openness of the award procedure may in practice weaken the effect of other amendments.

The attractiveness of reforms concerning negotiations with publication and competitive dialogue is, alas, weakened by a far-going change of terminology in the draft of the public procurement law as compared with the present one. Apart from that, too many imprecise terms have been used. Unavoidable interpretational problems may result in that against legislative assumptions practical interest in negotiated procedures will be lesser.