Slovenia ∙ Legislative Developments of the Slovenian Public Procurement Market in 2021 and January 2022

When adopting the amendment, the Ministry of Public Administration explained that after six years of applying the Act, enough time elapsed to test and establish that certain institutes needed updating, especially simplification due to the practice established so far and due to the epidemic. [...]this Act also contains some of the solutions brought by the intervention legislation adopted to mitigate the effects of the Covid epidemic. The amendment was also supported by some political parties, as they emphasised that the previous public procurement system made it impossible for public institutions to procure only locally produced food. [...]a group of MPs supported the principle that food procurement can be exempted as much as possible from the provisions of the public procurement system, thus increasing the share of locally produced food in public institutions.3 To facilitate procurement in the local economy, the thresholds for small-value contracts have been raised from €20,000 to €40,000, and for construction projects from €40,000 to €80,000. According to the amendment at the national level, the small-value contract procedure is allowed in all cases when the publication of a notice in the Official Journal of the EU is not required. A new Article 47a was added, which proposes a solution for publishing the reference price, namely that the contracting authority in public procurement procedures for medical devices and medical equipment publishes a reference price for the purchase of medical devices in the procurement documents and equipment.