The ultimate goal of public procurement is to spend public money in an efficient and proper manner to achieve best value for money. Given the economic significance of public procurement in the EU, fraud, corruption and collusion in this field dramatically harm the economy and public finances – both national and EU money. The violation of the public procurement rules remains one of the main sources of irregularities and fraud in projects co-financed by Structural Funds. In 2011 the violations of public procurement had a financial volume of more than 67 Mio EUR according to OLAF.

The regulatory framework to fight fraud and corruption has been strengthened with the recent EU public procurement reforms. In addition, the new regulations for European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI Funds) in 2014-2020 require public authorities to set up effective and risk-based measures to prevent fraud and corruption.

It will be crucial for public officials in charge of public procurement for national and EU funded projects to well know the legal requirements and processes of the procurement cycle in order to avoid irregularities, fraud, corruption and collusion. You should therefore be well trained on the various methods and tools to effectively prevent and detect it.