The new Law on Public Procurement took effect on 01 July 2020

Newsletter 122

With the adoption of the new Law on Public Procurement, the Republic of Serbia has continued to harmonise domestic regulations in this field with European Union Directives.

The primary aim of the new Law on Public Procurement is to, on the one hand, increase efficiency and competition in public procurement procedures, by reducing the administrative burden and the costs of participating in procedures (which is especially important for small and medium enterprises), and, on the other hand, to increase transparency and efficiency in the implementation of public procurement by introducing a new – significantly improved and multifunctional – Public Procurement Portal.

In the following sections we will point out some provisions of the new Law, which we found to be particularly interesting from the perspective of the bidder. We note that due to the number, it is not possible to feature all of the reforms in this Newsletter, nor to fully cover all aspects of the topics that will be discussed.

Thresholds for Applying the Law on Public Procurement

Thresholds for applying of the Law have been changed and increased (the previous threshold was 500,000 dinars). Specifically, contracting authorities are not required to apply the provisions of the Law on Public Procurement for the procurement of goods, services and design contests with an estimated value of less than 1,000,000 dinars and for the procurement of works with an estimated value of less than 3,000,000 dinars. 

Of course, for procurements that fall below the prescribed threshold of application, the contracting authorities are obliged to respect the general principles of the Law in a manner that befits the circumstances of the specific procurement, as well as to regulate such procurements with an internal act.

Likewise, the Law on Public Procurement now recognises the category of “European thresholds,” which pertain to the value thresholds that the European Commission publishes in the Official Journal of the European Union. Of course, these European thresholds are not directly applicable in Serbia, rather, our Ministry of Finance will periodically publish the value of these thresholds in dinars on their Internet website and in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia.