Abstract

The public procurement system is constantly evolving. The digitisation process, which has been progressing for several years and consists in the transformation of paper-based procedures into digital procedures, has undoubtedly led to improvements in this system.

The benefits of public procurement digitisation include the wider availability of information about the procedure, lower risks of corruption, limiting bureaucracy, lowering the costs of the procedure, standardising the purchasing processes and, quite importantly, building social confidence in public procurement.

The e-Procurement Platform is one of the key elements supporting the digitisation process. It is the government’s main tool for electronic communications in the pre-award phase of the public procurement process, including the secure submission of bids, applications and competitions. The e-Procurement Platform is also a place for publishing national announcements in the Public Procurement Bulletin and enables access to the EU announcements published in the Official Journal of the European Union. The e-Procurement Platform gathers basic information about proceedings conducted by public institutions in the central data repository. Certain applications (API) for services and data will be made available through the e-Procurement Platform, which will enable their integration with other systems. The new instrument will also allow the implementation and availability of document forms, which will contribute to their unification and standardisation.