What does participation deadline mean?
The participation deadline is the period within which interested companies must submit their request to participate to the contracting authority in a two-stage procurement procedure. It applies to procedure types that include an upfront competitive call for participation, especially the restricted procedure, the negotiated procedure with a competitive call for participation and the competitive dialogue.
The participation deadline starts on the day the contract notice is sent to the Official Journal of the EU (TED). Above the EU thresholds, the minimum participation period under the VgV (Public Procurement Ordinance) is 30 calendar days from the day the contract notice is sent. In urgent cases, which the contracting authority must justify sufficiently, the period can be shortened to 15 days. The period must be long enough for all interested companies to have enough time to put together their requests to participate properly.
The request to participate differs from the bid in that it does not yet contain any prices or specific performance commitments. Instead, in the request to participate, the applicants prove their suitability, meaning their technical expertise, economic capacity and reliability. Based on the requests to participate received, the contracting authority selects the applicants who are invited to submit a bid in the second phase.
Relevance for bidders
For bidders, strictly meeting the participation deadline is a mandatory requirement for taking part in the procedure. Requests to participate received after the deadline are excluded without any review of their content. As a rule, no leniency is granted for missed deadlines, not even for technical problems with electronic submission.
Bidders should therefore not leave submitting their request to participate until the last moment. It is a good idea to upload the request at least one day before the deadline, so you can handle unexpected technical problems. Bidders should also make sure that all required proof of suitability is complete and up to date, because experience shows that putting together references, certificates and declarations takes time.
Legal framework
Above the EU thresholds, the participation deadline is governed by Section 16(2) VgV for the restricted procedure and by Section 17(2) VgV for the negotiated procedure. EU Procurement Directive 2014/24/EU contains the corresponding European rules in Articles 28 and 29. For construction work, the provisions are in Section 10a VOB/A-EU. In the utilities sector, the SektVO (Sector Ordinance) governs participation deadlines in Sections 16 et seq. Shortening the period for urgency is subject to strict conditions and must be documented in the procurement file (Vergabevermerk).