PM Dancila: We are going to modify public procurement law at Thursday's gov't meeting

Public procurement law will be modified at Thursday's government meeting, in what concerns the deadlines for solving challenges to procurement decisions involving European funds, in the sense of cutting them shorter, prime Minister Viorica Dancila announced on Monday in Bacau.

"We can use the exchange of good practices and it will be beneficial. In relation to the modification of the public procurement law, at our meeting on Thursday, we have a chapter on this (challenges - editor's note). We took the German model and we are doing this," stated Prime Minister Viorica Dancila.

The European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Cretu, has previously stated, in the same context, in Bacau, that there is need of a legislative provision according to which challenges to procurement decisions involving European funds to receive a court decision within maximum 6 months. 

"That proposal, which I had made as soon as I became an European Commissioner, of setting up a special section on European funds, to rule within maximum 6 months, according to the Polish model, would be welcome as a legislative change. We have very many projects in the country which were pending or are pending with the courts, and money were lost because of the budgetary exercise. As you well know, the budgetary exercise takes 7 years. We have an example right here, near Bacau, where the person who lost the tender filed an action against the winner and won. No one can deny to a company or a person the right to challenge a decision. He won after 7 years and he only had one month to implement a roads project, which is practically impossible. Poland opted for this possibility and they changed the legislation of such a way that the decision should be pronounced within maximum 6 months, so that the works could continue," stated the European Commissioner. 

Prime Minister Dancila and the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Cretu, will be in the Bacau County to visit several objectives developed with European funds and to participate in the conference "Europe's Urban Investments: a Challenge for Change."