EPPPL 2020: Report from Greece
Stelios Tsevas
Attorney at Law, PhD Can. (Planning Law), LLM (Public Law), PgD (Public Procurement - King’s College London)
In my first report on Greece’s public procurement system, I identify three categories of notable developments: emergency COVID-19 schemes, procurement policy regarding the refugee crisis, and reservedness shown by the Conseil d’Etat in implementing the 2014 Directives.
A. Covid-19 Outbreak
From the very beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Government often resorted to emergency legislation schemes (Pràxis Nomothetikú Périéchoménu). By the force of these acts, wide derogations from 2014 Directives were introduced to facilitate the purchase of sanitary material and equipment by public authorities.
Under Article 3 par. 2 of the first legislative act, contracting authorities subject to or supervised by the Ministry of Health were allowed to conduct direct emergency purchases for medical supplies, personal protective equipment, and medicines under short 3-day calls published on the Ministry website, awarding contracts under the unique criteria of the lowest bid and capacity to supply sufficient quantities.
The Hellenic Single Public Procurement Authority (HSPPA) published Opinion A10/2020 pointing out that piecemeal regulations create confusion and delay, stressing that key institutional choices—such as publishing award decisions on KIMDIS—should remain active for transparency. Later, Opinion A23/2020 noted that as restrictive measures lifted, the discretion of invoking extreme urgency weakened, suggesting reliance on Article 32 par. 2 (c) of Law 4412/2016 instead.
Despite these warnings, Law 4728/2020 extended derogations through December 31, 2020, and allowed the Minister of Health to accept private donations of hospital equipment, ICU construction, and medicine.
B. Refugee Crisis
In response to the active refugee crisis, Law 4650/2019 involved the Ministry of Defense in managing reception centers, allowing public bodies to use negotiated procedures without prior publication regardless of contract value for national security and public order reasons.
Additionally, Law 4605/2019 enabled single-stage tender assessments in emergency cases, while Law 3861/2010 equipped the Ministry of Defense with the discretion not to publish calls if national security was considered to be harmed (later repealed by Law 4727/2020).
C. Significant Case Law
- Judgment 1259/2019 (Conseil d’Etat): In line with ECJ Grossmann Air Service (C-230/02), interested parties who did not participate in contest proceedings maintain legal interest to challenge the call for tenders only if specific terms unlawfully exclude their participation or render tender submission virtually impossible.
- Judgment 1722/2020 (Conseil d’Etat): Regarding restaurant concessions under Directive 2014/23, unless a tender is found abnormally low by the competent authority, judicial review is restricted to checking for obvious errors or deficiencies in reasoning.