Public procurement in Lithuania: the ongoing development

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Perkančioji organizacija; Pirkimų procesas; Viešieji pirkimai; Viešųjų pirkimų sutartis; Contracting authority; Process of procurement; Public contracts; Public procurement.

ENIt has been the fifth anniversary of Lithuania's accession to the family European Union member states recently. Nevertheless, the legal regulation of public procurement in Lithuania counts more than a decade. Still, this is a relatively short term for the existence of a matured and well developed public procurement system in the broadest sense of it. However, the Lithuanian public procurement system is quite a dynamic one, evolving day by day and being improved by reference to the successful practice taken place within the EU and globally. The purpose of this article is to overview the legal regulation of public procurement and its practical implementation in Lithuania. This is probably the first attempt doing this in the legal literature other than the Lithuanian one. Indeed, it is a sophisticated task to provide a deep analysis on whole Lithuanian public procurement law within a single publication. Therefore, this article addresses the main issues of national public procurement law and might be helpful to anyone trying to understand the stages of evolution of the subject within the emerging economical and legal markets. In other words, this article seems to be like a roadmap of Lithuanian public procurement law supplemented by the analysis of particular aspects which are more or less authentic to Lithuanian case. It has to be emphasised that there is no deep analysis of every element of the procurement in this article. When mentioned here that the particular elements are regulated in the same way as it is being done by the EC public procurement law one should anticipate that Lithuanian regulation and the case-law if any is the same as being provided by the EC directives or the Court of Luxemburg unless described otherwise.The publication is divided into two parts. The first part reveals the legal regulation and the system of public procurement law in Lithuania. The second one includes the sub-parts, where important elements of public procurement law, such as principles and purposes of the procurement, the legal status of contracting authority, the beginning and the whole process of the procurement, types of it, public contracts, simplified procedures and remedies in public procurement, are analysed. The conclusions are given at the end of the article. [From Introduction]