Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

Public procurement as a system of procedures for purchasing goods and services is quite complex. Especially having in mind international legal regulation and high requirements for the assurance of such principles as transparency, fair competition, non-discrimination, mutual recognition, proportionality. Thus from the other side of the issue, in special fields as defence and national security, it is not always possible to strictly observe the mentioned rules. Institutions in a state, which is facing threats, must be able to flexibly; this would allow balancing the urgency and competiveness of purchasing procedures. Still such situations require clear managing system and legal regulation supporting it. In this article, the authors present the preliminary analysis of management of public procurement for defence and security via disaster management cycle theory and mostly focus on the phase of response towards certain destructive actions. The managerial aspect of the issue is supplemented by the analysis of the legal regulation, which should support managerial processes. Having in mind that in different phases of the disaster management cycle, different methods of management (requiring special legal regulation, as legitimation of such actions) should be applied, examples of two countries are presented. Lithuania as a member state of European Union is chosen to illustrate the reflections of managerial processes in legal acts, which are passed in the phases of mitigation and preparedness. Ukrainian example is presented to illustrate the difficulties, which state may face, when managerial processes as well as legitimation thereof in legal regulations are developed in the phase of response. To answer these questions, literature review, comparison, analyses of documents, synthesis and other methods were used. It is concluded that the public procurement processes definitely should be prepared in advance and every state should be ready for the urgent purchases before the direct threats for security appears. Ukrainian example shows, how it is difficult, costly and requiring other efforts to develop these processes and implement it in the same time. It should be mentioned that raised questions are in the constant process of learning and this article should be considered as a primary steps towards deep analysis of the continuity of state actions in the situations of real threats and tensions, which Europe is facing today.

The aim of this article is to analyse the essence of the harmonisation of public and private interests in the public service. The necessity of the harmonisation of public and private interests in the public service is based on the following features: civil service reliability and implementation of its purpose in order to guarantee the public interest; clear, binding standards of conduct applicable to all persons employed in the public service, regardless of their duties and career development nature; aim to prevent the emergence and spread of corruption in the public service; constitutional requirements for the implementation of public service. The article reveals that there are two key elements of a conflict of interest: 1) official duties that ensure the implementation of a public interest; 2) private interest which may negatively affect the performance of official duties. It follows that if a conflict of interest in the public service is not resolved or addressed properly, sooner or later it turns into corruption, and cause significant damage to the state itself. It is therefore very important timely identification, removal and management of the conflict of interest.

The article analyses an in-house procurement concept in the contexts of scientific doctrine, substantive law and legal practice. The Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement and repealing Directive 2004/18/EC is discussed in the part of provisions regulating cases where a public contract between public entities is not a subject to public procurement procedures. In addition, statistical data of in-house procurements in Lithuania are presented and threats of in-house procurement concept application as well as possibilities of improvement thereof are assessed.