Procedures for Awarding Work Contracts in Europe

Abstract

Choosing a contractor with the best competencies is particularly important, especially in construction contracts. Using data available on the opentender.eu platform, information for 2022 was compiled regarding the size of the public procurement market and the procedures used in public procurement for construction works in European countries. The most common procedure used under the European Union Directive for awarding work contracts, in most countries, is the open procedure. The largest share of this procedure, amounting to over 95% of all proceedings, is in the countries Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, and Poland. On the other hand, there are countries where the procedures proposed in the Directive are used to a small extent. In order to distinguish groups of European Union countries characterized by a similar structure of public procurement for work, the joining (tree-clustering) algorithm was used. This will provide insights into the strategies of countries in this area. Knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of the various procedures may improve the public procurement system.