Government backs procurement control bills, rewrites key duties

The Government has endorsed the aim of three draft amendments to Lithuania's procurement lawsE TAR that would tighten how contracting authorities organise procurement and run internal control, while rewriting several of the drafts' key duties. Resolution No. 740 of 7 October 2026E TAR backs bills Nos XVP-1108(2), XVP-1109(2) and XVP-1110(2)E TAR, which amend Articles 95 and 97 of the Law on Public Procurement (VPĮ), Articles 101 and 103 of the utilities procurement law (PĮ) and Articles 9 and 69 of the defence and security procurement law (VPGSSĮ).

As drafted, the bills would require every contracting authority and contracting entity preparing its procurement organisation and internal-control procedure description to follow provisions approved by the Public Procurement Office (Viešųjų pirkimų tarnyba) without deviation, or to demonstrate in internal documents that its own description equivalently secures the internal-control objectives in the Law on Internal Control and Internal Audit across the whole procurement processE TAR. Where the Office found an authority's control system falling short of those objectives, the authority would have to make corrections following the Office's recommendationsE TAR.

The Government calls two of those additions redundant and proposes deleting themE TAR. The extra Office functions written into the VPĮ and PĮ drafts already exist in Article 95(1)(1) and (19) VPĮ and Article 101(1)(1) and (15) PĮE TAR, and the correction-order sentence duplicates the Office's existing power to order legal persons to change unlawful decisions or actions under Article 95(2)(6) VPĮ, Article 101(2)(6) PĮ and Article 9(2)(5) VPGSSĮE TARE TAR. For the defence and security regime, where no power to adopt implementing acts existsE TAR, the Government instead proposes a new Article 9(1)(15) VPGSSĮ empowering the Office to prepare and/or adopt the acts specified in that lawE TAR.

Substantively, the Government wants the Office to set core requirements rather than a detailed procedure templateE TAR, coordinated with the ministry responsible for procurement policy and the ministry responsible for internal-control and internal-audit policyE TAR. Authorities could then shape their own procedures around their structure, size, identified risks, complexity, decision-making, staff, procurement volumes and information systemsE TAR, in line with the effectiveness and proportionality principles in Article 5 of the internal-control law. Likewise, the Government would replace the duty to prove “equivalence” — for which it says no objective criteria exist, creating uncertainty, uneven application and administrative burden — with a duty to justify in internal documents any non-application of the Office's core requirements, showing how the authority's own system still secures the internal-control objectives from procurement preparation through contract performanceE TAR.

To give authorities time to review and update internal acts and procedures, the Government proposes the amendments enter into force on 1 July 2027E TAR, with the Office approving the core-requirements description three months before that dateE TAR.

Legal basis: bill No. XVP-1108(2) to VPĮ Articles 95 and 97E TARE TAR, bill No. XVP-1109(2) to PĮ Articles 101 and 103E TAR and bill No. XVP-1110(2) to VPGSSĮ Articles 9 and 69E TARE TAR, with Government Resolution No. 740 of 7 October 2026; Law on Internal Control and Internal Audit, Articles 4–5.