At the beginning of March, we continued the Think Tank with our procurement clients. This time, we focused on the most relevant topic: the future of public procurement in Estonia and the EU.

We took a look at the results of the simplification project led by the Ministry of Finance and discussed the pros and cons of the proposed changes that have the greatest impact. Simplification as an objective is great, but in reality, it must also be understood that the more streamlined the regulation is, the more challenging its everyday implementation becomes. The proposal with the greatest impact from the simplification project is to eliminate the national threshold and allow simplified procurements up to the international threshold, as well as raise the public procurement thresholds. The Ministry of Finance is currently working on an implementation plan to move forward with the selected proposals, and by the end of May, we should see which actual legal changes can be expected.

The season finale of the Procurement Think Tank took place on June 6, 2024, at the beautiful Bestwine studio, where we discussed procurement instruments such as framework agreements and dynamic purchasing systems. These tools offer significant time-saving opportunities for procurers, and we all agreed that they could be used more and more intelligently.

On March 20, 2024, we will take a broader look at strategic procurement, including the current challenges of sustainable public procurement across the European Union.

We will be joined by guest speaker Tarmo Kiivit, Partner at AS Helmes, who will share insights on sustainable IT procurement from a business perspective.

On January 30th, another Procurement Think Tank took place, with the focus this time being on amending procurement contracts.

What contracting authority has not at some point wondered whether and how it is possible to amend a procurement contract considering regulatory constraints? Absolutely all of them! Therefore, there are often more questions than answers, and it's good to be able to discuss them together. We discussed recent court decisions and practices regarding amending procurement contracts from the perspective of the participating institutions.

In October, the first Public Procurement Think Tank was held, targeting clients from the office of procurers, with the following central themes:

• Relying on indicators of another person;
• Integrity of procurement documents - what is actually needed, and how much of the work done by the procurer is useless or duplicative, as the law already ensures it;
• Selection of compliance conditions in the Public Procurement Register.

In October, the first Public Procurement Think Tank aimed at our office clients took place, focusing on the following topics:

• Relying on indicators from another person;
• Completeness of tender documents - what is actually needed and how much of the procurer's work is redundant or duplicative because the law already ensures it;
• Selection of compliance conditions in the Public Procurement Register.