In August 2016, the SYRIZA government felt particularly pleased. N.4412/16 was issued in the summer, incorporating existing European directives. The purpose of the law was “… a network of important innovative rules with the aim of consolidating and improving the public procurement system, simplifying and speeding up procedures, increasing the efficiency of public resources, enhancing competition and the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises …” (see minutes of the 8th convocation Parliament 2016). The complacency of “reform” required more than 400 fruitless amendments and improvements to pass Law 4782/21 just five years later, with the consoling heading “Modernization, simplification and reform of the regulatory framework for public contracts.” …” and which “…leads to a number of radical improvements in this institutional structure, a number of real sections that can face long delays in projects, distortions in costs, with prices that prevail in government contracts that ultimately in the end, of course, they lead to a waste of the state investment program … ”(see Protocol of the 2nd Parliament 2021). The legislative government now belonged to the ND. and, as it turns out, the mood of “reform” remained about the same, but simply moved to another wing of the parliament.

In practice, the legislator’s historically ambitious goal has remained well-written explanatory statements and a strong voice of buyers in parliament, as the need to provide flexible and simple tools that allow public authorities to enter into transparent and competitive contracts. with a simple, fast and understandable way, so that purchases are made at the best value for money, it seems not to have been achieved.

How and by what criteria is an open tender conducted? What are the tender procedures? When are they not provided? What happens when an unforeseen circumstance arises? What are the rights of potential contractors? Why is the final award of the government contract delayed? What is an option and what is the estimated value? Who is prohibited from appointing members of the commissions that will hold the competition and receive the project? How and why do prices rise when a contract is executed? Why are government contracts constantly being amended? What are EAADISY, AEPP, ESYDIS, KIMDIS, HellSyn, EDL, CPV, TEYD and EEES?

Are you still reading or did you turn on the TV to hear about the fateful convention? As long as laws remain long texts, difficult for the average citizen to understand and difficult for enforcers to use, they will look like vast and intricate labyrinths reproducing the pathologies that lead to delays, cancellation of tenders, price gouging and other habitual practices. phenomena.

Entangled in the tunnels of the legal labyrinth, we meet helpless civil servants in charge of the tender process, administrations of public organizations who, feeling and under pressure from the suffocating needs of their bodies, feel trapped in incomprehensible bureaucratic procedures, potential contractors. who sometimes expedite and sometimes delay the award of a tender or the execution of a public contract, lawyers who rely on the letter of the law to take advantage of the ambiguity and complexity of the relevant provisions, judges who struggle to interpret supposedly “simplistic” legislative frameworks without avoiding issuing conflicting decisions, independent bodies issuing multipage and densely written instructions for the application of the law, and, finally, citizen-users who expect and legitimately expect to use the product of a public contract directly or indirectly and for which they have already paid the economy their own share.

The latest report from the Accounts Chamber found that 2/3 of all projects were granted deferrals, with these projects taking on average 2.5 times longer than originally estimated. Out of the same control has emerged the tendency of public authorities in general to be more tolerant of contractors in the event of delays in order to avoid administrative burdens and further delays that would bring conflict with them.

Filing objections, injunctions, appeals, and motions to annul government decisions can take more than twice as long to complete a tender as it would take to complete a much-touted project.

The path to a state contract with an optimal price-quality ratio requires the adoption of accelerated procedures with a sharp reduction in the administrative burden, without, of course, giving up strict supervision and control. But such control should not play a hostile role and should not prevent the state, on the one hand, from getting the best possible at the best possible price, and the market from establishing that the buyer is reliable and solvent, on the other.

In this context, public opinion is called upon to take responsibility and draw conclusions about something it does not know and is informed fragmentarily when the spotlight tries to highlight tragic events. The fog of legal provisions obscures the public demand for speed, efficiency, clarity and transparency in public procurement. As long as the procedures remain complicated and confusing, the area of ​​responsibility will dissipate like the nightly dew of a recent tragedy. But in the legal labyrinth we are not alone, the Minotaur has also moved into us!

* Mr. Giorgos P. Kunturis, lawyer of the Supreme Court www.koudurislaw.gr.