The Electronic Award and Execution of Public Procurement

It is customarily reported that in Europe public authorities spend approximately 19% of their GDPs on works, goods and services. Less well known is that public procurement Directives cover only a small percentage of such expenditure. Based on EU data, currently only 20% of the value of public contracts awarded in Europe is above threshold or fully within the scope of public procurement Directives. From this perspective, the need to find new solutions to create an effective internal market for public procurement in the EU becomes evident. IT solutions seem to become strategic in order to better enforce non-discrimination efficiency and transparency principles and encourage crossborder participation. A wider implementation of IT solutions might be the solution for the future of public procurement. The ambitious and visionary policy of introducing electronic public purchasing envisioned over the last decade has not yet been implemented. Yet, improving IT solutions the throughout the entire procurement process is increasingly evident. Inertia and fragmentation of procurement entities are considered the main barriers to it. Electronic advertising is obviously the first step to make, followed by submission of the requirements and offers, while their e-evaluation will be the future challenge. The choice of the award criteria changes significantly the issues in this phase; yet, a previous definition of the measurable criteria might permit the evaluation of the most economically advantageous electronic tender too. Standardisation of documents in the execution phase might encourage the efforts to overcome legal barriers and significantly increase cross-border participation. Finally, IT solutions allow collection of data and information on all transactions and payments to the economic operators involved. Such data could provide a valuable map of the quality and quantity of public spending