The new Hungarian law on public procurement

8.7.2015

Question for written answer E-011002-15
to the Commission
Rule 130
Csaba Molnár (S&D)

In the period since 2010, corruption in Hungary has reached government level, as is well illustrated by the fact that Hungarian government representatives have recently been expelled from the USA on suspicion of corruption, and that on the basis of the 2014 OLAF report, Hungary is the EU Member State in which the second largest number of OLAF investigations are taking place. The situation is likely to be worsened by the draft legislation on public procurement submitted to the Hungarian Parliament on 19 May. The government’s new proposal does not increase the transparency of public contracts, does not improve the accessibility of public procurement data, does not impose sanctions to tighten the publication requirement, and does not create independence for the Public Procurement Authority. The proposed law would introduce the possibility for the subjectively evaluation of the most favourable price/quality ratio as opposed to the lowest price, which would further increase the risk of government corruption which has already reached a critical level. The draft law would set a shorter time limit for drawing up the bid and signing the contract, which would further increase the incidence of people close to government obtaining contracts worth millions in a non-transparent manner. In the light of the above, I should like to ask the following questions:

Is the Commission investigating whether the legislative proposal on public procurement introduced by the Hungarian Government is in line with Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement?

In the Commission’s view, does the new proposal with a view to the adoption of the public procurement law contribute to reducing corruption in Hungary?

In the Commission’s view, could there be any connection between the number of OLAF investigations in Hungary from 2010 to 2015 and the law on public procurement adopted in 2011?