On 22 April 2024, the representatives of the Republic Commission for the Protection of Rights in Public Procurement Procedures (the Republic Commission) participated in 14th Meeting of the Network of First Instance Review Bodies of the European Union (Network), organized by the European Commission – Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises (DG GROW), which was held in Zagreb.
The Network of First Instance Review Bodies of the European Union – as foreseen by the EU Single Market Strategy, has been established in 2017, in response to the Evaluation Report (adopted on 24 January 2017) on the effectiveness of the Public Procurement Remedies Directives. The aim of the Network is to encourage cooperation and exchange of information in order to support the efficient functioning of national review bodies in public procurement, including data collection and development of indicators related to the national legal protection systems.
The Republic Commission attended the meeting of the Network, in the capacity of observers.
After introductory speech given by Maja Kuhar, President of the Croatian State Commission for Supervision of Public Procurement Procedures, the morning session included the presentation of the review indicators, based on the data provided by the members of the Network. DG GROW also presented the Special report of the Court of Auditors 28/2023: Public procurement in the EU – Main conclusions and take-outs. This segment of the meeting was concluded with the discussion and proposals related to the role and actions the Network might undertake in the period 2024-2029, through exchange of views of the members, in order to contribute, as much as possible, to the fulfilment of the recommendations from the mentioned report.
The afternoon session was devoted to the presentations of national review systems so that the French Republic and the Republic of Albania presented their review systems. Thanks to the host-institution which initiated an interesting discussion on abnormally low offers, the examples from daily-work practice of the bodies responsible for legal protection in the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Poland were presented. The following topic, initiated by the practical example in the Portuguese Republic, also related to capacity to initiate proceedings (‘locus standi’), enabled exchange of practical examples, and understanding of the provisions of the Directives on legal protection as well.
As a part of common practice in all the meetings of the Network, the representative of DG GROW spoke about the latest case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the area of public procurement and legal protection, including the pending cases and Opinions of Advocate-General.
At the end of the meeting, in accordance with the agenda, the observer status for the new candidate states, Moldova and Ukraine, was discussed.