Lithuania Plans Standard Construction Contracts Ahead of EU Procurement Reform

Lithuania plans to make the EU's procurement reform a priority of its scheduled Council presidency in the first half of 2027, and its own Public Procurement Office (Viešųjų pirkimų tarnyba) says buyers at home will have to change their habits sooner. The Ministry of the Economy and Innovation (Ekonomikos ir inovacijų ministerija) announced the presidency plan on 14 September. On 30 September, at Verslo žinios' "Viešieji pirkimai 2026" conference, the Office's director Darius Vedrickas told buyers that the Office's position on not using its standard contracts "will become stricter" and that "the attitude will have to change".

Quick answer: for a supplier in Lithuania, changes to contracts are likely to arrive before changes to procedures. The Office plans a standard construction contract by the end of 2026, mandatory after a transition of two to three months under the "apply the contract or justify" rule that already covers service contracts. The EU regulation would apply only two years after it enters into force; the Office's director expects agreement on the text during the presidency and puts the direct effect "two or three years" away, mostly above the EU thresholds.

The story in five numbers

• €650 million a year is the estimated EU-wide saving the minister attributes to the simplification, €570 million for business and €80 million for buyers
• 35 percent is the administrative-burden cut targeted in Lithuania's "3i" economic transformation plan, which the minister says the EU reform would help meet
• 2 to 3 months is the transition the Office plans before its standard construction contract becomes mandatory, after delivery planned by the end of 2026
• 1 March 2025 is when the Office's standard conditions for service contracts became mandatory for authorities buying under the Public Procurement Law
• 2 years after entry into force is when the EU regulation would start applying, per the ministry and the Commission's text

What the ministry said

The ministry wants fewer rules, more digital tools and better SME access, and it wants to help reach agreement on the proposal during its presidency. Its release lists what it will push: an EU digital procurement ecosystem linking national platforms and checking supplier eligibility automatically against national and EU registers; fewer unjustified barriers for supplier groups; more division of contracts into lots and faster payment; three procedures instead of five, with more weight on preliminary market consultation. Minister Edvinas Grikšas said procurement "is one of the areas where the bureaucratic burden on business and institutions can be cut significantly" and tied the EU saving to the 35 percent burden-reduction goal of the "3i" plan.

The release also describes other elements of the proposal: a "European preference" principle, a minimum weighting for quality criteria in most cases, and one regulation in place of three directives, which it says would reduce "the volume of rules and their differing interpretation in member states".

What the Office said at the conference

Vedrickas expects the EU text to be agreed during Lithuania's presidency, and then a long wait. "I am convinced that during Lithuania's presidency of the EU Council the regulation texts will be agreed; the European Commission is paying great attention to this," he said, per the Office's own account of his remarks. The change in applying the regulation is "still a distant result", with direct effects felt "after two or three years"; the general principles of Lithuanian procurement will remain, the regulation "will have a bigger influence on international procurements", and its effect below the directive thresholds "will probably be minimal and depend solely on the state's position to make a change". That is his forecast; the proposal's application timetable starts only once it is adopted and published.

The nearer change is the standard construction contract. Contract works and related services are bought by "a large part of organisations", and the Office plans to give them a standard construction works contract (Tipinė rangos darbų sutartis) by the end of the year. A transition of two to three months is planned; after that the contract is to become mandatory, on the principle "apply the contract or justify". One contract will apply to all works for now, "from painting walls to building bridges and viaducts"; Vedrickas does not rule out separate versions for different kinds of works later.

"Looking ahead, the Office's position on the non-application of standard contracts will become stricter. From practice we see that organisations do as they have done until now, but the attitude will have to change." Training and methodological help come first, he said, with more courses on standard contracts. He acknowledged that buyers find it "difficult to give up their own contracts", but argued that simpler requirements cut a supplier's cost of taking part and make it "easier to bring a supplier into a procurement".

Also from the speech: the Office plans to offer digital submission of Atn-1 procedure reports this year, and the tender for a new central procurement information system (CVP IS) is to be announced shortly.

The rule behind "apply or justify"

Article 87(1) of the Public Procurement Law (Viešųjų pirkimų įstatymas) says procurement contracts are concluded using the Office's approved standard conditions. There are two exceptions: where the conditions are not applicable to the object being bought, and where they cannot be adapted to its particular features and the buyer justifies its decision not to apply them. In the second case the justification goes in the procedure report.

The duty has limits. Under Article 87(5) the requirements may be waived for contracts under €15,000 excluding VAT, or whose content is identical for all recipients and not adapted by the supplier to individual needs.

The Office's service conditions, mandatory under the general law, are only recommended for unpublicised negotiations, small-value purchases and contracts covered by those exceptions, and are not mandatory for utilities and defence buyers, who follow separate laws. A draft of the construction conditions was published for comment in June, with the comment period extended to 21 August.

What the EU draft would change in an open procedure

At the same conference, Laura Ziferman, partner at the law firm Walless, pointed to one practical difference in the Commission's draft: negotiation would be possible in both the open and the dynamic procedure. Today, she said, if the only offer in an open procedure exceeds the buyer's budget, there is no way to negotiate it within that procedure. Under the draft, a buyer that states at the launch of an open procedure that it intends to negotiate could do so (Article 34 of the proposal).

Lithuanian law does give buyers a route today, but a longer one. Article 59(5) bans negotiation within an open competition. Where every bid to an open or restricted competition has been rejected as unacceptable, for instance because the prices exceed the available budget, Article 63(1)(2) lets the buyer start a separate negotiated procedure, provided the conditions are not substantially changed; it may skip a new notice only if it invites all previous bidders who met the eligibility and formal requirements. The draft would fold that step into the original procedure, if the buyer announces that intention at the outset.

What is still open

The construction contract text is not final, and the Office has not announced a mandatory start date. What "stricter" will mean after the training phase is not described. At EU level, whether the final act is a regulation or a directive, and how much Vilnius can settle in six months, are open.

What to do now

• Bidding on Lithuanian works? Read the draft standard construction conditions the Office published in June, and once they apply, check whether the required standard conditions have been used and, if not, which lawful exception the buyer relies on.
• Buyer under the general law not using the standard service conditions? They are mandatory outside the listed exceptions; ask which exception the buyer relies on.
• Only bidder and over budget in an open competition? The buyer cannot negotiate within that procedure today and may, but need not, open a separate negotiated procedure under Article 63. Check any published budget before pricing your bid, and do not assume you will get another chance to revise it.

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