Implementation of EU Public Procurement Law in Estonia – history revisited

Introduction:

In Estonia, all the relevant Directives on public procurement law have traditionally been regulated by one and the same act. In a similar manner, the new Public Procurement Act (hereinafter the PPA) incorporates provisions implementing the new (2014) Directives on concessions, public and utilities procurement, defence and security procurement and the remedies system. Also following in the tradition of the previous public procurement legislation, the PPA applies both to procurements above and below the EU thresholds (PPA art.8). On the other hand, some of the "novelties" introduced by the 2014 public procurement Directives are familiar from Estonian public procurement laws of 1995 and even date back as far as 1934.

This article reflects on some of the controversial issues related to implementation of the 2014 public procurement Directives and looks at Estonian public procurement law in the light of recent developments in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). In particular, we look at obstacles to timely transposition of the 2014 Directives, including problematic gold-plating of some aspects of public procurement law by the national legislator, in Part 2 of this article. In Part 3, we analyse selected themes of implementation, such as exclusion of tenderers, competitive procedure with negotiation, modification of public contracts and in Part 4, the implementation of recent cases from the CJEU.