Public Procurements During the COVID-19 Pandemic Time - Lessons for the Republic of Serbia

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted variations in the governments' response to health crises and interventions acrossstates, not only in the prevention of pandemics but also in their economies and public expenditure. As a result of the pandemic, the majority of states declared an emergency in accordance with the provisions of their constitutions to enable the introduction of restrictions needed for the prevention of virus spread. Having in mind the new circumstances that introduced limitations in all areas, the question of the implementation of initiated public procurements and the realization of newoneswasraised. Some goods,such as medical materials necessary for the treatment of patients with coronavirus and the prevention of its spread, had to be obtained in an extremely short time. That was aggravated by the shortage of supplies, the impossibility of market research and the lack of planned fundsin the budget. EU rules allowdeviationsfrom regular proceduresin such urgent and unpredicted situations.However, a special challenge for all countries was the prevention of abuses, conflict of interest and other illegalitiesin public procurement during the emergency. In the paper, the authorsstart from the assumption that it is necessary to increase control and transparency of public procurementin the Republic of Serbia, especially in emergency situations, bearing inmind the corruption risks and challengesraised by the European Commission's progress reports. To prove the assumption and provide guidelines for improving regulations and practices, in the first part of the paper, the authors analysed the relevant European standards on public procurement and the measures taken by the EU member states to implement public procurement procedures quickly and efficiently in times of emergency,with the aim of identifying good practices. In the second part of the paper, the authors analyse the legislation ofthe Republic of Serbia and the approach taken during the pandemic against the EU member states' comparative examples and practices. In addition, the authors propose recommendations for the improvement of transparency and competitiveness in public procurement in times of emergency