The government is preparing a new framework for defense and security procurement, which will replace the 2020 law, with changes affecting more than half of its content.

The new draft law “Procurement in the field of defense and security” was drafted following the comments of the European Commission and the SIGMA assessment. The changes affect everything from the cases when defense tenders can be excluded from the usual procedures, to the method of competition, tenders without announcement, complaints, and invalidity of contracts.

One of the most important changes is the narrowing of the cases that can be excluded from the application of the law. The current law generally excludes, among other things, procurements carried out through NATO agencies or international organizations, all procurements in the event of crises or extreme situations of national security, as well as the purchase of military equipment and means, weapons, ammunition, and war materials. The new draft law removes these general exemptions. Contracts that follow special rules of international organizations will be treated according to the specific conditions of the relevant agreement, while military equipment is considered part of the main object of the law and cannot be automatically exempted from its rules. The law also provides that secondary legislation cannot create new exemptions or expand those defined in the law.

Another innovation is the creation of a simplified procurement procedure for lower-value contracts. The new law provides for three categories of monetary limits: the upper limit, the lower limit, and a special limit for the simplified procedure.

For contracts below the lower monetary threshold, the simplified procedure could be used, an instrument that is missing from the current law. For other contracts, the main procedures remain the limited procedure and negotiation with prior publication, while the competitive dialogue will be used for particularly complex contracts.

The draft law maintains the possibility of negotiation without prior publication, but requires that its use be argued in the procurement order, and then the justification becomes part of the winner notification.

This procedure can be used, among other things, when a previous tender has not received bids, when bids are unacceptable, when there is an urgency caused by the crisis, in extreme unforeseeable cases, or when the contract can only be performed by one operator for technical reasons or due to exclusive rights.

For additional works and services, the value procured in this way cannot exceed 50% of the initial contract. The draft law also requires that these works or services be technically or economically inseparable from the initial contract.

Changes are also foreseen for framework agreements. The normal maximum term is increased from five to seven years, while in exceptional circumstances it may be even longer.

The exception must be related to the durability of the goods, installations, or systems and to the technical difficulties that a change of supplier may create. In such cases, the authority must argue why the agreement needs a longer term.