PUBLIC CONTRACTS
AT THE EPICENTER OF THE CRISIS:
PONDERING THE VARIABLE INTENSITY
OF THE COMPETITION PRINCIPLE
MARK KIRKBY
Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon
It remains interesting how public law and some of its legal principles are often subordinated to the political circumstances of the crisis by means of contrary measures that demonstrate a flexibilization of the principle in question. And these are the key-points of this report: a) The "variable geometry" of some public law principles in the context of a crisis, from the example of the "competition principle" emerging from the public procurement rules; b) If that variable geometry is or is not desirable - we can ask ourselves if the Justice Court and the Commission should not look at this principle, less as a "sacro-saint" despotic principle and more like one principle among others one should pursue in times of crises.
Il est intéressant de constater comment le droit public et certains de ses principes juridiques sont souvent subordonnés aux circonstances politiques de la crise au moyen de mesures contraires qui montrent que ces principes peuvent devenir flexibles. Et ce sont là les points clés de ce rapport: a) la "géométrie variable" de certains principes de droit public dans un contexte de crise, à partir de l'exemple du "principe de concurrence" qui émerge des règles des fournitures publiques; b) pour ce qui est de savoir si cette géomé¬trie variable est souhaitable ou non, on peut se demander si la Cour de justice et la Commission ne devraient pas considérer ce principe moins comme principe despotique "sacro-saint" que comme un principe parmi d'autres à appliquer en temps de crise.
