Representatives of the Republic Commission for  Protection of Rights in Public Procurement Procedures, Member of the Commission Ana Antić and Assistant Secretary Jasmina Milenković participated in the 19th meeting of the expert group “Network of First Instance Review Bodies on Public Procurement”, held on October 15, 2026 in Dublin, Republic of Ireland.

During the meeting, the system of legal protection in public procurement procedures in Ireland was presented with special reference to the legal framework, the judicial protection procedure, including the challenges of the automatic suspension of the public procurement procedure due to the duration of the appeal procedure, that were presented by the President of the High Court of Ireland as well.

Later on, the representative of the  European Commission gave an overview of the latest judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union and opinions of the General Advocate in public procurement procedures in the year 2026.

One of the topics was focused on the usage of artificial intelligence tools in public procurement procedures and review procedures, including the presentation of the artificial intelligence-based platform “SOLA” which is in use in the Slovak Republic. In this context, the participants of this meeting presented the challenges faced by institutions in their countries when using artificial intelligence. Based on the information provided during the meeting, in most of the EU Member States as well as in the Candidate Countries, software tools are used to a certain extent in public procurement procedures, which, according to the exchange of experience, facilitates the procedures to a certain extent, but also imposes new additional challenges that need to be solved.

Special attention during the meeting, was paid to the presentation of the draft Regulation of the EU Public Procurement Act, which should be adopted by the end of 2027, and would have a direct legal effect in the Member States of the European Union. Related to that, the representatives of the different countries who took part in this meeting presented their observations and comments, which, in their view, reflect the advantages of this new Regulation, as well as the doubts they might have regarding its application.

The meeting of the expert group “Network of First Instance  Review Bodies of the European Union” was organized by the European Commission.