Transnational Information Exchanges between EU Member States’ Contracting Authorities to Reduce Risks and Ensure Integrity in Cross-Border Public Procurement

The objective of this paper is to investigate how the cross-border exchange of information between contracting authorities can help to reduce risks and achieve integrity in public procurement. This is particularly true when economic operators participate in award procedures carried out by contracting authorities established in other Member States of the European Union. Indeed, information exchanges allow removing doubts surrounding the authenticity of documents submitted by an economic operator, therefore making it possible to evaluate correctly the suitability of both the tenderer and the tender. Such evaluation could not be ensured if contracting authorities were left alone to gather relevant information, due to practical and linguistic obstacles. Data were gathered through legislation in place as well as documents related to the application of the EU information exchange system in the public procurement sector. The adopted method implied a first phase for exploration of legislation, a second phase for the analysis of the documents related to the implementation of information exchanges in the public procurement sector and a third phase for elaboration of future perspectives. The results emerged from research led to the evaluation of the extent and implications of the use of cross-border information exchanges. Devices like the Internal Market Information System (IMI), applied to the public procurement sector, lead to overcome linguistic barriers, as well as to reach a degree of simplification of the exchange of information that helps inter-administrative communication and in turn the gathering of information which is helpful for the purpose of ensuring compliance with rules and integrity in public procurement procedures. As the implementation of such systems in public contracts is recent, the conclusions of this paper deal with the perspective and implications that exchange of information may have in the future, including the building of a common heritage of knowledge and information that in turn may foster the spread of cross-border joint procurement, at the same time improving integrity in public contracts.