The amendments to the general provisions regulating the scope of application of the portuguese public procurement code

Abstract

The issue whether the Portuguese Public Procurement Code which results from the entry into force of Decree-Law no. 111-B/2017 of 31 August – as driven by Directive no. 2014/24/EU – is an amended version of the text of 2008 or a wholly new code is not a minor one. In fact, systematic interpretation of several provisions arising out of the 2017 version is, to a certain extent, conditioned by understanding whether the legislative policy that endowed the Code with its own essence in 2008 remains untouched.

The present paper aims solely – for the purpose of exemplification – at considering the amendments foreseen in one among many complex structuring sets of norms with which one is immediately confronted when one undertakes a sequential reading of the Code: the general provisions on the scope of application (articles 1 to 6-B). The purpose of the paper is to assess if, in what concerns Title I (“General provisions”) of Part I (“Scope of application”), a mere “revision” of the Code took place or whether, quite differently, the Decree-Law no. 111- B/2017 of 31 August brought about a true substitutive version of the text of 2008. The conclusions, necessarily produced in a perfunctory and precarious fashion – given the minimum time elapsed since the passing of the statute –, seem to point towards the first alternative.