Representatives of the Public Procurement Office participated in the meeting of the Subcommittee on the Internal Market and Competition, held on 25 February 2025 in Belgrade.
At the Subcommittee on the Internal Market and Competition, contributions prepared by the competent state administration authorities were presented to representatives of the European Commission on the following topics: 1) Protection and enforcement of intellectual, industrial, and commercial property rights; 2) Public procurement; 3) Right of establishment and freedom to provide services; 4) Banking, insurance, and other financial services; 5) Company law, accounting, and auditing; 6) Public health and consumer protection; 7) Competition policy.
In line with its competences, the Public Procurement Office submitted written information to the European Commission on the latest developments concerning:
- Exemptions from the application of the Public Procurement Law (type of exemptions/value);
- Use of the most economically advantageous tender as an award criterion, statistical data for 2023 and 2024, and measures taken to increase the use of this criterion;
- Experience with the electronic public procurement system in Serbia;
- Implementation of the Public Procurement Development Programme in the Republic of Serbia for the period 2024–2028 and the Action Plan for 2024;
- Administrative capacities of the Public Procurement Office;
- Capacity building and organisation of training for stakeholders at all levels, including strengthening institutions, contracting authorities, and bidders;
- Measures to strengthen control mechanisms in public procurement, including monitoring and increasing transparency in the contract execution phase, as well as systemic risk assessments prioritising controls in sensitive sectors and procedures;
- Monitoring the implementation of the Public Procurement Law, including conclusions and key results from the latest annual monitoring report;
- Capacities for preventing and combating corruption and conflicts of interest at central and local levels;
- Total value of exempted procurements in 2022, 2023, and 2024;
- Planned measures to increase the average number of bids per procurement procedure and to reduce the share of procedures with only one submitted bid, within the framework of the Sector Budget Support for Public Administration Reform (PAR SBS).
During the meeting itself, a more detailed discussion was held on the implementation of the latest amendments to the Public Procurement Law from 2024, particularly regarding mandatory environmental criteria for certain public procurement items.
