AmCham Romania calls for an accelerated launch of EU-funded projects

The American Chamber of Commerce in Romania (AmCham), through the Structural Funds and Public Procurement working group, expresses its deeply concern at both the delay in the launching calls for tender, and guide procedures related to Operational Programmes 2014 – 2020, a press release informs.

With the expiration deadline on April 18, 2016, AmCham believes that there remains a potential long term negative impact on the absorption of EU funds coupled with the lack of integration of  European Union (EU) Directives on public procurement (classical and sectoral) through a new primary and secondary legislation into national law.

“We request that the Government make public the methods by which the funding sources are combined, focusing on the origin of funds for implementing strategies imposed by the ex-ante conditions upon accessing European funds. Also, we  believe  that a comprehensive assessment of Romania’s investment be performed in order to avoid infringement procedures over failure to transpose EU Directives into national legislation in a number of priority areas such as environment, energy, health,” the  release notes.

In order to avoid market distortions using anti-competitive practices, AmCham representatives have pointed out the need to introduce two very important principles in the public procurement secondary legislation, namely mandatory public consultations on technical specifications and comparative analysis/ benchmarking in technical specifications.

Specifically, the correct application of the first principle requires that, before launching the tender selection procedure, the contracting entity must subject to public consultation the technical documentation to be used therein; the public consultation will be organized in accordance with the law.

With reference to the second principle, AmCham fully supports binding the contracting entity to publish within the tender book, applicant’s guide or any other documentation used in the public procurement procedure national & international legislation – the standards in force in accordance with the approved technical requirements included in the documentation (maximum and minimum limits, technical characteristics etc).