Topic summary
Tenders Electronic Daily
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Government procurement in the European Union.
Procedures
The procedure is intended to be fully transparent with the intention of creating a free and competitive Europe-wide market. The rules state that for projects above a certain financial threshold (about €100K) a contract notice must be published in Supplement S of the Official Journal of the European Union OJEU previously known as [OJEC S-Series]. Nowadays the information is available immediately on the web from Tenders Electronic Daily ('TED'). Regulated minimum timescales apply, which vary according to the procedure chosen; if "a state of urgency duly substantiated by the contracting authority" makes it impracticable to comply with the relevant time limit, then an "accelerated procedure" may be followed, typically allowing a time limit of not less than 15 days "where a state of urgency duly substantiated by the contracting authority renders [the ordinary timescale] impracticable. The facility to use an accelerated open procedure was introduced in the 2014 directive: under the 2004 directive this facility was only available in conjunction with the restricted and negotiated procedures.