New Public Procurement Law

The Law of 8 April 2018 on public procurement transposing Directives 2014/24/EU on public procurement and 2014/25/EU on procurement by entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sector was published in the Luxembourg official journal on 16 April 2018 and entered into force on 20 April 2018.

The main improvements under the new Luxembourg procurement rules are:

• contracting authorities will be encouraged to divide contracts into lots, making tenders more accessible to SMEs;
• the turnover required to participate in a tender procedure will be limited, allowing more SMEs and start-ups to participate ;
• the documentation requirements for procurement procedures will be considerably decreased by using The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) which is a self-declaration form replacing the various different forms used in the past by EU countries for proving that a bidder fulfils the exclusion and selection criteria. Evidence will only have to be provided by the tender winners.

Moreover, to encourage progress towards particular public policy objectives, the new rules also allow for environmental and social considerations, as well as innovation aspects to be taken into account when awarding public contracts.

For further insight into the key features brought by this law, see the newsflash "Nouvelle législation sur les marchés publics" on our website.