Public Contracts
The public administration traditionally has an obligation to fulfill tasks of providing goods and services in the economic, social and cultural field.
The state manages various business sectors and carries out industrial, commercial, agricultural and general economic activities. In order to achieve its goals, public administration, in the context of its activity, enters into contracts both with Legal Entities of Public Law and Legal Entities of Private Law as well as with individuals, creating new legal relationships. However, in these legal relationships the administration has a superior position over its counterparty acting for the shake of public interest. Therefore, the legal acts in which it proceeds establish new rules of law by which it externalizes the will to enter into either administrative or private contracts. In general, according to EU law, public contracts mean contracts for pecuniary cause concluded in writing form between one or more economic operators and one or more contracting authorities and whose object is the execution of projects, the supply of products or the provision of services.
The conclusion of a public contract does not become a simple procedure, given that the contracting authorities who publish the terms of the announcement of a contract are obliged to observe the principles of free and unfair competition, confidentiality, equal treatment of interested parties and the avoidance of discrimination by choosing that candidate with the offer that corresponds qualitatively and quantitatively to the subject of the contract. Furthermore, the proper and timely execution of the contract by the contractor is equally fundamental for the fulfillment of the obligations it carries from the signing of the contract. Therefore, as can be seen from the stage of publication of the terms of announcement up to the act of awarding and signing the contract, given the high competition and often the financial stake of the contract, the differences that may arise are numerous and largely technical and detailed in character. The competent authority for resolving them is the new Unified Authority for Public Contracts (L. 4912/2022). However, there may also be disputes during the execution and implementation of the contract, which the regular Administrative Courts are competent to resolve. Therefore, it constitutes an aspect of law with a large scope and a multitude of legal issues, which becomes for this reason highly attractive.
