Romania has been warned on the infringement procedure by members of the European Union’s Internal Market and Services Directorate General (DG MARKT), in a meeting held at Brussels end-August.
The Romanian delegation at Brussels was led by Premier’s state advisor Eugen Teodorovici, while the meeting focused on amending public procurement law.
According to the official paper, the Commission representatives stressed out the law changes are too frequent, considering the member countries will anyhow be compelled in the future to make law amendments after enforcing the new community legislative framework.
The EC adopted the same approach regarding other EU member states as well, the paper read.
End-July, the Government planned to double to EUR30,000 the threshold on public service, works and product contracts awarded directly, without public procurement auctions. The new procurement rules had been included in an emergency decree that amended public procurement legislation by doubling the threshold on direct-award public contracts and eliminates the required participation guarantee for purchases below the EUR30,000 cap.
The decree also raised thresholds on public contracts requiring public procurement auctions. The threshold was raised to the lei equivalent of EUR5 million for public works, from the previous EUR4.8 million, and to EUR200,000 from the previous EUR193,000 for services contracts.
In September, a draft law on public procurement said Romania’s Government wants to ease price requirements in public procurement auctions and reduce the level below which an offer is considered “unusually low” from 85% to 70% of the estimated value of the contract. The 85% threshold should be applied only if there are at least five valid bids.
According to another draft law on public procurement this month, the Romanian contracting authorities will no longer be required to select winners of public auctions in 20 days after offers are opened.