Guide to Doing Business in Asturias 2024
As Spain is part of the European Union, its public procurement regulations are strongly determined by European directives on the matter which aim to guarantee transparency and freedom of competition, as well as non-discrimination and the elimination of barriers between Member States to promote the single market.
This is why the Spanish Public Sector7 must subject the procurement of works, services and products to specific rules that make it necessary to process some procedures or others depending, essentially, on the estimated value of the contracts and the identity of the contracting body.
According to the provisions of Law 9/2017 of 8 November on Public Sector Contracts, whereby the Directives of the European Parliament and of the Council 2014/23/EU and 2014/24/EU of 26 February are transposed into the Spanish legislation, we could distinguish between two situations, preliminarily, based solely on the estimated value of the contract.
These are contracts that can be awarded directly and without having to resort to various award criteria. Their estimated value cannot exceed the following amounts depending on their purpose:
In contracts with estimated values higher than those indicated, it will be necessary for the contracting body to carry out a bidding procedure whose characteristics will vary depending on certain circumstances, but which will have the objective of guaranteeing free competition, in other words, whereby different bidders may submit offers, with the price-quality ratio, as a general rule, being the determining criterion.
In order to be a Public Sector bidder in Spain, it will be necessary to meet a series of requirements and not incur any prohibition to contract which is legally provided for (such as not being up to date with tax or Social Security obligations, for example), at the same time that a digital certificate must be available, as has been anticipated, since the submission of offers to bidding procedures must be carried out via the platforms enabled for this purpose.
The most important Platform where the information related to all tenders for contracts with values higher than those of the minor contract is published, is the Public Sector Procurement Platform of the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration of the Government of Spain.
Some Public Sector bodies and entities have their own procurement platform, such as the Principality of Asturias. Some City Councils, such as Oviedo, also have a section at their electronic office where you can search for their different completed or ongoing tenders8.
Furthermore, in Spain there is an Official Registry of Bidders and Classified Companies of the State (ROLECE): this is a national electronic registry that contains the data of the bidders and registration with it serves to speed up the accreditation of the company's solvency in order to participate in bidding procedures and it is mandatory for works contracts with an estimated value greater than €500,000 (exc. VAT).
Finally, it is worth mentioning that in Spanish legislation there is a special administrative appeal in procurement matters which may be filed against certain acts that occur during a tender (exclusion of a bidder or award of the contract, inter alia) of contracts for an estimated value higher than €100,000 in the case of service or supply contracts, and greater than €3,000,000 in the case of works contracts (exc. VAT, in both cases).
This special appeal is processed before the administrative court specialised in public procurement competent in line with the contracting body that issued the contested act and it is an optional action which, if filed, puts an end to the administrative route and its decision may be challenged before the contentious-administrative jurisdiction bodies. Given that it is usually resolved quickly, it constitutes a more flexible, speedier option than a judicial process and, in addition, as a general rule, no costs are awarded, and it is for these reasons that its filing is usually recommended despite not being a mandatory prior step in order to be able to go to court.
In the case of Asturias, which does not have its own administrative court in matters of public procurement, special appeals in matters of procurement which are filed against acts issued by procurement bodies of the Region must be addressed to the Central Administrative Court for Contractual Appeals (TACRC), based in Madrid, although the processing of this procedure is completely electronic through the aforementioned SARA Network.
(7) This concept must be understood in a broad sense, since the regulations on public procurement are applicable not only to Public Administrations, but also to all types of institutions, entities or organisations which may be included in the scope of application of the Public Sector Contracts Law, such as universities, instrumental organisations etc.
(8) Oviedo City Council tender search engine.