7 December 2021, Budapest – The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) and the Hungarian Association of Cities with County Rights (MJVSZ) have concluded a cooperation agreement. The GVH and the umbrella organisation of municipalities will join forces in order to maintain the fairness of competition in the public procurement procedures of the municipalities.

Csaba Balázs RIGÓ, President of the Hungarian Competition Authority, and Károly SZITA, President of the Hungarian Association of Cities with County Rights, agreed on the future cooperation between the two organisations in order to mutually facilitate the performance of each other’s tasks, in particular, ensuring the fairness, transparency, and publicity of competition during public procurement procedures within the competence of the municipality.

Pursuant to the agreement, the two organisations will hold expert and managerial consultations on the developments of case law, inform each other about general market experience, and organise trainings, conferences, and professional events to raise the competition awareness of municipalities, among others. The GVH has undertaken to pay special attention to expanding the knowledge about competition law among cities with county status.

‘Municipalities conduct a significant part of the domestic public procurement procedures: in terms of the number of procedures, they were responsible for 37.5% of all public procurement processes in 2020 and 46.4% in 2019, while in terms of estimated value, we can talk about hundreds of billions of Hungarian forints. The degree of competition that the municipalities, as contracting authorities, set up in their public procurement procedures is not a negligible factor in the efficient use of public funds. Furthermore, during the assessment and evaluation of the bids received, it is important that they pay special attention to filtering out any possible anti-competitive behavior. This is what the GVH can help the municipalities with, through the Hungarian Association of Cities with County Rights’ stated Csaba Balázs RIGÓ, President of the GVH.

Károly SZITA, Mayor of Kaposvár City with County Rights and President of the Hungarian Association of Cities with County Rights, emphasised that the services of municipalities have recently undergone significant changes, including the introduction of new innovative public procurements. In addition to these, changes in the field of mandatory and voluntarily tasks of the municipalities have created a new situation for them.

The text of the cooperation agreement is available on the websites of the Hungarian Competition Authority www.gvh.hu and the Hungarian Association of Cities with County Rights www.mjvsz.hu.

GVH Press Office

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