Contracting Authorities wishing to award a public contract (regardless of the specific tender procedure chosen: open, restricted, negotiated with publication of contract notice, or competitive dialogue), are obliged to publish a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).
For publishing a contract notice, the Contracting Authorities should take into account:
| ● | Certain basic rules for preparing and dispatching the notice and, primarily |
| ● | The fact that the time limits which they should set for the receipt of requests to participate and the receipt of tenders apply from the date of dispatch of the contract notice. |
Basic rules for preparing and dispatching a contract notice
The texts of contract notices are completed and sent to the Office for Official Publications of the EU either by electronic means (using electronic forms) or by other means (dispatch of the notice by post, facsimile or electronic mail). The form and details concerning the transmission of notices by electronic means are available from the following internet address: http://simap.eu.int.
The Contracting Authorities must in all cases be able to prove the date of dispatch of the notices, by means of the relevant certificate supplied by the Commission to Contracting Authority.
In what regards the completion of the standardised forms dispatched for publication to the OJEU (without using electronic means), the size of the texts supplied by the Contracting Authorities is not allowed to exceed a maximum of around 650 words (in addition to the words of the basic structure of the standardised form).
It is pointed out that the Contracting Authority is obliged to follow the progress of the notice which it has dispatched for publication in the OJEU, in order to identify promptly potential alterations or omissions in its publication, and act as necessary in order to ensure that corrections – additions are made to the notice or, possibly, that the notice is cancelled. The Contracting Authority must therefore check carefully the notices of all types as these are finally published, either by accessing the relevant OJEU Website (http://ted.eur-op.eu.int/), or by comparing the draft notice sent for publication against the copy of the published notice contained in the CD-ROM sent by the Office for Official Publications to every Contracting Authority.
If a Contracting Authority wishes to modify, correct or cancel a notice sent for publication to the Office for Official Publications, no relevant templates are available. In this case, the Contracting Authority sends to the office responsible for the production of Supplement S to the OJEU a communication to this effect, which must state the following information in connection with the notice which the Contracting Authority wishes to modify/correct or cancel:
| ● | Name of the Contracting Authority. |
| ● | Date of dispatch of the initial notice to the Office for Official Publications and all relevant internal references. |
| ● | Details of the publication in Supplement S of the Official Journal of the EU (date of publication, document reference). |
| ● | The details of the modification/correction of the notice or an unambiguous request for its cancellation. |
The Contracting Authorities must also publish the notices in the Government Gazette of the Republic of Cyprus, and may also publish them in the national Press (political and financial newspaper).
Publication of notices in the Government Gazette of the Republic of Cyprus and in the national Press before their date of dispatch for publication to the Commission is not allowed.
The publication of notices at the national level is recommended to take place as soon as possible and preferably on the next day following their dispatch for publication in the OJEU.
The notices which are published in the Government Gazette of the Republic of Cyprus and in the national Press must not include any information other than which is contained in the notices sent to the Commission, i.e. they should not contain information which is more, less or different information than the information published in the OJEU.
For national publications, the use and adaptation of the standardised form used for publication of the notice in the OJEU is recommended.
In cases where notices are modified, corrected or cancelled, the relevant changes should also be notified nationally, in the newspapers in which the initial publication was made, and should also be sent to the recipients of the tender documents.
Time limits for the receipt of requests to participate and for the receipt of tenders (Law 12(Ι)/2006)
The date of dispatch of the contract notice is an important milestone in the procedure for the award of a public contract, as it serves as the starting point for calculating the time limits for the receipt of the requests to participate (restricted procedure, negotiated procedure, and competitive dialogue) and for the receipt of the tenders (all tender procedures).
To determine the time limits, the Contracting Authorities should take into account the complexity of the contract and the time required for the preparation of tenders, and, of course, the time limits. In other words, the Contracting Authorities are not allowed to set in the tender documents any time limits which are shorter than those stated by the Law (minimum time limits); they are however free, where they consider this to be necessary, to set longer time limits so as to give to the interested economic operators the necessary time in which to plan and present their technical solutions.
In what regards the calculation of the time limits specified in article 43 of Law 12(Ι)/2006, Regulation 1182/71/EEC of the Council (L124 of 8-6-1971) applies, pursuant to which:
| ● | All time limits start from the date of dispatch of the notice to the OJEU. |
| ● | The number of days given in connection with the time limits should refer to full days between the dispatch of the notice and the conduct of the tender procedure (e.g. for the time limit of 52 days, the first day is the day after the dispatch and the last day is the day before the date set for the conduct of the tender procedure). |
| ● | If the last day is a public holiday, a Saturday or a Sunday, the time limit shall expire upon the lapse of the last hour of the next working day. |
| ● | Every time limit must include at least two working days. |
The Figure below shows the minimum time limits for the receipt of requests to participate and for the receipt of tenders, as defined in article 43 of Law 12(Ι)/2006 and applicable to contracts with an estimated value above the thresholds of article 19 of Law 12(Ι)/2006.
Figure 3-12: Minimum time limits for the receipt of requests to participate and for the receipt of tenders, for contracts with a value above the thresholds of article 19 of Law 12(Ι)/2006
The above minimum time limits may, under specific conditions defined in Law 12(Ι)/2006, be shortened.
The Figure below shows these conditions and the corresponding reductions of the minimum time limits.
Figure 3-13: Conditions for shortening the minimum time limits for the receipt of requests to participate and for the receipt of tenders, for contracts with a value above the thresholds of article 19 of Law 12(Ι)/2006
It should be noted that the reductions under the second and the third condition may be applied cumulatively (i.e. the time limit may be shortened by a total of 7 + 5 = 12 days).
In addition, the first condition may allow the minimum time limit for the receipt of tenders to be reduced by up to 22 days, provided that the prior information notice contains all the information required for the contract notice and was sent for publication between a minimum of 52 days and a maximum of 12 months from the date on which the contract notice was sent.
For contracts with an estimated value below the thresholds of article 19 but above those of article 84.1(c) of Law 12(Ι)/2006, the minimum time limits for the receipt of requests to participate and for the receipt of tenders are shown in the Figure below:
Figure 3-14: Minimum time limits for the receipt of requests to participate and for the receipt of tenders, for contracts with a value between the thresholds of articles 19 and 84.1(c) of Law 12(Ι)/2006
Time limits for the receipt of requests to participate and for the receipt of tenders (Law 11(Ι)/2006)
The time limits for the receipt of requests to participate and for the receipt of tenders conducted by Contracting Entities (Law 11(I)/2006) are similar to those mentioned above.
The differences refer to the number of days of the minimum time limits, shown in the Figure below. The number of days in brackets represents the minimum time limit which may result from the cumulative application of possible reductions.
Figure 3-15: Minimum time limits for the receipt of requests to participate and for the receipt of tenders for contracts with a value above the thresholds of article 15 of Law 11(I)/2006
The above minimum time limits may, under specific conditions defined in Law 11(Ι)/2006, be shortened.
The Figure below shows these conditions and the corresponding reductions of the minimum time limits.
Figure 3-16: Conditions for shortening the minimum time limits for the receipt of requests to participate and for the receipt of tenders, for contracts with a value above the thresholds of article 15 of Law 12(Ι)/2006
In addition, the first condition may allow the minimum time limit for the receipt of tenders to be reduced by up to 22 days, provided that the periodic indicative notice contains all the information required for the contract notice and was sent for publication between a minimum of 52 days and a maximum of 12 months from the date on which the contract notice was sent.
It should be noted that the reductions under the first, second and third conditions may be applied cumulatively, provided that the time limit which results in this way shall not be less than the number of days given in brackets in Figure 3-12 (e.g. the time limit (a) for the submission of tenders in the open procedure may be shortened from 52 to 24 days).