The existing list of principles of public procurement has been modified in the new Public Procurement Law to include an additional principle of efficiency, while shifting away from the primacy of competitive contract award procedures. The new Public Procurement Law has also changed the definition of the existing principle of transparency.

The principle of efficiency is defined as an obligation to ensure that a contract is awarded in a manner that guarantees both the best quality in relation to the resources that the contracting authority can allocate to the contract and the best ratio of expenditure to outcomes, including social, environmental and economic outcomes.

It is important to note that efficient spending is explicitly required under Article 44 of the Public Finance Act of 27 August 2009 (Dz.U.2019.869) which has been binding on the public finance entities since 2010; hence, this is not a critical change but a mere confirmation of the requirement. More to the point, it must be borne in mind that the efficiency of public procurement will not change with the incorporation of this new rule in the Public Procurement Law; to achieve that effect, a number of steps will have to be taken such as improving the qualifications of the procurement services, in particular in using the legal instruments provided in the Law; adopting best practices in respect of the bid assessment criteria, and shifting the global approach to EU fund spending to favour quality over quantity.

Under the new regulations, the principle of transparency incorporates the personal data protection requirements arising from Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (OJ L 119 of 4 May 2016, p. 1, as amended).

Besides, there are hardly any practical implications of the deletion of Article 10 of the existing Law to the extent that the provision lays down the principle of primacy of competitive contract award procedures. The mere fact that this language has been deleted will not affect the obligation to meet the strictly defined eligibility criteria for non-competitive contract award procedures.