Serbia: Republic of Serbia in the Accession Process to the European Union and the Public Procurement Reform

The European Commission underlined that Serbia has to continue to make progress in alignment with and implementation of the acquis in Chapter 5 (Public Procurement), and that there are benchmarks that need to be met for the provisional closure of this chapter. The first closing benchmark is related to harmonisation with the acquis: "Serbia fully aligns its national legal framework with the EU acquis with regard to all areas of public procurement, including its legislation on concessions and international agreements exempting certain works from public procurement rules". The first one states that "Serbia puts in place adequate administrative and institutional capacity at all levels and takes appropriate measures to ensure the proper implementation and enforcement of national legislation in this area in good time before accession", while the second one demands that "Serbia demonstrates a track record of a fair and transparent public procurement system, which provides value for money, competition, and strong safeguards against corruption". The law was amended in February 2015 to reduce the price preference given to domestic bidders to 5 %, ahead of the schedule for liberalisation under the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, and in July to further align it with the EU Directives adopted in 2014. According to the Public Procurement Development Strategy 2014-2018 and related Action Plan, 2017 is the "D-Year" for the Serbian public procurement legislation, in a sense that by the end of 2017 Serbia's legislation related to public procurement, as well as on concessions, has to be fully aligned with the...