Abstract

This chapter provides an analysis on the Spanish legal regime of active and passive transparency concerning public procurement. The chapter focuses on two different perspectives. On the one hand, the transparency is viewed from the perspective of social demands in public management and access to information held by the public sector, which also relates to public procurement. In this regard, it is important to note that Spain was the last of the larger EU countries (with a population of more than one million) to approve a modern law on this matter. On the other hand, transparency is looked at from the specific perspective of current Spanish public procurement sectoral legislation, where transparency has acquired a main role: even the Explanatory Memorandum thereof establishes transparency as its primary objective. The prominence acquired by transparency regarding public procurement in the Spanish legal order takes the form of highly significant active and passive publicity obligations. Nonetheless, the legislator's efforts have, to a large extent, overlooked the importance of transparency in the contract performance stage, where there is still much room for improvement.