Auditing
We will improve and develop the auditing of public contracts performance, and commit to standardise the format of data of public call for tenders and encourage increased publicity of awarded public tenders to foster transparency on public procurement.
Country: France
Status: ongoing
Themes: Public procurement
Last updated: December 2020
Classification:
Concrete: Somewhat Concrete | New: New | Ambitious: Somewhat Ambitious
public procurement law
Open Tender
Simplification shatters the public procurement code
Publication by the European Commission of the regulation presenting the new European procurement notices, mandatory in October 2023
Decree n ° 2019-1344 of 12 December 2019 amending certain provisions of the public procurement code relating to thresholds and advances
Order of March 22, 2019 relating to essential data in public procurement
Public procurement law: the main novelties
Welcome to the STATE PUBLIC PROCUREMENT website
The legislative framework regarding transparency on awarded public tenders has been implemented through 2018, public procurers must now publish standardised essential data from public contracts above a threshold of 40 000 euros.
However, thresholds allowing over the counter public procurement have been increased twice since October 2019. A first decree published in December 2019 increased from 25 000 to 40 000 euros the amount from which public call for tenders is mandatory. Then, a second decree published in July increased again this amount temporarily, to 70 000 euros, but only for specific type of procurement (public works and food items). Even if the implementation of this decree is too recent to be able to determine its impact yet, there is a significant risk that it will negatively impact the publicity of public procurement. Also, new increases of the threshold are still being planned.
Regarding the standardization of public call for tender, dematerialization is mandatory since 2018. Yet, there is still an ongoing work to standardize public calls, related to the preparation of the implementation of the “E-form” European regulation in 2022.
Updated: October 31, 2020
Transparency is still a pilar of French regulation on public procurement. Since 2017, France was active in the C5 initiative, e-invoicing is now mandatory (which can foster better audit efficiency), France has committed to create a unified data-flow on data.gouv.fr. In addition, a positive dynamic can be observed at subnational/regional level on public procurement transparency and open data (although heterogeneous). However, thresholds allowing over-the-counter public procurement are expected to be raised, which will call for some vigilance if confirmed. Generally speaking, many laws were passed recently, that still need to be evaluated.
Updated: October 30, 2019