EN
Research into the strongly regulated environment of public procurement calls not only for purely legal analyses and regulatory interpretations, but for a knowledge of those involved in the public procurement market, its characteristics and difficulties, and the artificial curbs on competition. The article is based on questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews into the relations between the features of the public procurement market, the competition-curbing elements, and the opinions of participants on the relation between competition and public procurement, while touching also on the shortcomings of the institutional environment. Practical examples are given of the errors and problems of a legal approach that relegates procurement questions into the background, thereby impeding competition.