Due to the significance of public procurement and the current developments concerning the participation of third countries in public procurement, this master’s thesis is devoted to examining the position of economic operators from third countries in public procurement procedures of the European Union (EU), with a focus on the direct award of contracts to economic operators established in third countries that are not parties to the Revised Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) or have not concluded an appropriate agreement in the field of public procurement with the EU. I presented the positive law framework governing the participation of third countries at the EU level and within the national legal orders of the Member States, and I analysed the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) as well as national review bodies and courts. The participation of third countries was further examined through the judgments of the CJEU in Cases C-652/22 (Kolin) and C- 266/22 (Qingdao), in which the CJEU addressed the possibility of third-country participation of economic operators from third countries that are not parties to the GPA or do not have a relevant public procurement agreement with the EU, their access to legal remedies, and the delineation between EU law and national law. In doing so, I sought to demonstrate what such interpretation means for the future, how it is already reflected in the national frameworks of the Member States, where shortcomings can be identified, and which questions remain unresolved. Based on the analysis, I conclude that the current development of legislation and the practice of national review bodies and courts indicate that the award of public contracts to economic operators from third countries without a relevant agreements in the field of public procurement has become the exception rather than the rule.
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