THE SYNERGY OF PUBLIC PROCUREMENT AND MANAGMENT FOR PROJECTS FINANCED FROM THE EUROPEAN STRUCTURAL AND INVESTMENT FUNDS

Abstract

Under the Partnership Agreement with the European Commission, the Republic of Croatia has available 10,675 billion euros for use from the European Structural and Investment Funds in the period up to the year 2020. Most of the EU funds will be „spent“ on the basis of public works, public supply and public service procurement contracts and according to experience, it is assumed for it to be the 48% of the total received funds. The implementation of public procurement procedures while respecting the strict legally prescribed procedures precedes the conclusion of the contract, just as the allocation of funds is a matter to complex criteria for choosing the best projects to be co-financed out of EU funds. Past experience in the implementation of projects funded by European Structural and Investment Funds has shown that frequent errors occur in the area of public procurement due to the non-compliance of officials implementing public procurement and officials implementing projects co-financed out of EU funds. Since it is in the interest of the project submitter to coordinate the usage of funds received under given terms and conditions, it is necessary to include a public procurement specialist in the initial phase in order to avoid unnecessary errors in later phases of the project