The European Commission is on the verge of filing a claim before the Court of Justice of the European Union for Bulgaria not complying with the legislation in the field of public procurement. This is clear from the April package of sanctions for non-fulfilment of commitments arising from European membership.
The procedure against Bulgaria is related to the exclusion of private hospitals from EU public procurement rules, even when they are partially financed with public funds.
Our country has two months to respond and remedy the deficiencies, otherwise, the EC will file a claim against our country in the Court of Justice of the EU.
In the fall of last year, private hospitals received another scandalous concession from the National Assembly not to conduct public procurement for drugs and consumables, even though they are financed with public funds – from the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).
This happened with the votes of GERB, DPS, “Vazrazhdane”, BSP and ITN. Only “We continue the change-Democratic Bulgaria” (PP-DB) supported the procurement of private hospitals.
According to the analysis of the Ministry of Finance, in 2022, Bulgarian taxpayers, through their contributions to the National Health Insurance Fund, paid BGN 2.04 billion to all hospitals in the country for the provision of medicines, consumables, medical devices, etc. At least BGN 750 million of them, or 37% of those over BGN 2 billion, were paid by the NHIF to private hospitals.
At the same time, while they do not conduct public procurement, private hospitals report to the NHIF up to 20 times more expensive the same drugs compared to public hospitals. A practice that for years the state has failed to limit in “detour ways” – through a centralized electronic auction and various “formulas” to reduce the price gap.
Bulgaria has been notified of the initiation of procedures by the EC due to the exception that private hospitals do not conduct public procurement as early as January 2019.
At the moment, the criminal procedure is in the pre-trial phase. Possible sanctions for our country will be determined by the Court of the European Union, if our country is convicted.
In the period 2019-2022, our country conducted official correspondence with the EC and Bulgaria accepted the arguments that it had incorrectly transposed Directive 2014/24/EU.
However, during the vote in the National Assembly, the changes proposed by the government to the ZOP were shamed.
Tags: verge Bulgaria court public procurement private hospitals
