The Republic Commission for the Protection of Rights in Public Procurement Procedures (hereinafter: the Republic Commission) continued its cooperation with the SIGMA/OECD initiative by holding a workshop at its head office on May 28, 2025. The workshop was attended by the Members of the Republic Commission and its legal advisers, and the representatives of the Public Procurement Office.
The event officially started by an opening address of Mrs. Aleksandra Melesko, Senior Adviser for public procurement at SIGMA/OECD.
The speakers at the workshop were Borut Smrdel, senior judge of the Slovenian Administrative Court and Sašo Matas, Director-General of Public Procurement Directorate in the Ministry of Public Administration of the Republic of Slovenia.
The key topic of the workshop was the amending/revision of the European Union’s (EU) regulatory framework governing public procurement, through the discussion on the up-to-date issues in the EU Member States, related to the development of public procurement in the EU. The workshop continued with regular monitoring of the practice of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the field of public procurement.
Mr Sašo Matas talked about the upcoming amendments to EU Directives on public procurement adopted in 2014. He focused on the analysis of the Report of the European Court of Auditors (ECA), Enrico Letta’s special report on the future of the EU internal market titled “Much More Than a Market”, and Mario Draghi’s report on competitiveness in the EU, indicating multi-annual trend of decreasing number of bids in the EU Member States and increasing share of other types of procedures other than open procedure in certain Member States. The speaker also briefly referred to the Slovenian public procurement system and its most important characteristics.
Mr. Borut Smrdel presented the latest practice of the Court of Justice of the EU, with focus on judgements in the area of public procurement, as listed in the Agenda.
The interesting topics and exceptionality of the presenters resulted in a highly interactive workshop, based on examples from their experiences and the practices in the EU and Slovenia.