Public procurement : guidance for practitioners on the avoidance of the most common errors in public procurement of projects funded by the European Structural and Investment Funds

The purpose of this guidance is to help public procurement practitioners in contracting authorities in Member States avoid the most commonly seen errors when procuring works, services or supplies involving co-financing from the European Structural and Investment (ESI) Funds. Errors in applying public procurement rules are the single largest source of irregularities detected by national and EU auditors when checking how EU grant funds have been spent. Depending on the seriousness of the error, this can lead to financial corrections of up to 100 % of the grant amount, potentially causing severe problems for public budgets. The European Commission is committed to assisting Member States to achieve the sound management of the ESI Funds through feedback and the dissemination of guidance documents, leading to reduced error rates. The present guidance captures lessons from audits over many years examining how public procurement rules have been applied in practice. The guidance is designed to assist procurement practitioners at different levels of local and national public administrations running public tenders involving EU funds. It highlights where mistakes commonly occur and what can be done to avoid them, particularly the critical role of pre-procurement planning. The guidance should also be of assistance to managing authorities of programmes supported by the ESI Funds' with front line responsibility for verifying that public procurement rules are complied with in all EU co-financed projects.