Activities per year
Abstract
One of the objectives of Directive 2014/24/EU is to facilitate the participation of SMEs in public procurement. Although the realisation of this objective very much depends on the decisions taken by contracting authorities when designing their procurement procedures, the provisions of the Directive offer them little guidance in that regard. This article explains how the Dutch legislator has tried to fill that gap by means of a Proportionality Guide based on the Dutch Public Procurement Act. The Guide provides contracting authorities with best practices and rules explaining how to act in a proportionate manner when deciding on important topics such as time limits, selection criteria, contract terms and conditions, aggregation of contracts, and the type of procurement procedure to apply. This article argues that, in doing so, both the Act and the Guide give a (too) broad interpretation to the proportionality principle. Although this interpretation raises questions from an EU law perspective, it is submitted that it does not conflict with EU law, nor does it lead to significant problems in Dutch procurement practice.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 214-238 |
Number of pages | 25 |
Journal | Public Procurement Law Review |
Volume | 2022 |
Issue number | 4 |
Publication status | Published - Jun 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022, Sweet and Maxwell Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- EU law
- Netherlands
- Proportionality
- Public procurement
- Small and medium-sized enterprises
VU Research Profile
- Governance for Society
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Stretching the Proportionality Principle: How Dutch Law Facilitates the Participation of SMEs in Public Procurement'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Activities
- 1 Lecture / Presentation
-
The Dutch Proportionality Guide in Practice
Chris Jansen (Speaker)
13 Jun 2017Activity: Lecture / Presentation › Academic