CORREIA, José Manuel Sérvulo. The amendments to the general provisions regulating the scope of application of the portuguese public procurement code. []. , 4, 2, pp.04-20. ISSN 2183-184X.

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.

: Public Procurement; Amendments to the Public Procurement Code; European Directives on Public Procurement; General Provisions; Scope of application of the Public Procurement Code.

        · |     · |     · ( pdf )