The Pope changes the rules of extraordinary expenditures for the departments

These measures aim to ensure better definition of expenditure management in individual Vatican departments and greater transparency in procurement.

The first treatise deals with the “Limits and Methods” of the ordinary administration of the newly organized Dicastries of the Holy See. In three articles, the new apostolic constitution, the Evangelical Datum, essentially stipulates that a Vatican Foundation must obtain the approval of the head of the Secretariat of the Economy when a single expenditure exceeds two percent of the total cost of the institution itself, a figure taken from which average final balance sheets are drawn. For the past three years. She says: “In any case, approval is not required for contracts worth less than 150,000 euros.”

Another paragraph of the document sets a 30-day deadline for granting approval, after which even failure to respond will amount to approval of the application. However, taking into account ensuring the necessary planning of regular acquisition procedures on the part of the Chambers, this procedure must be completed “within forty days and no later”.

Procurement regulations

With the second letter, which came in the form of a special will, the Pope intervenes to further define the regulations of the Vatican Procurement Law announced in 2020. Here too, in line with the Gospel of the Praedict, Francis emphasizes that he seeks on his own initiative to continue “the discourse to promote transparency, control and competition.” in public procurement procedures”, in order to “more effectively apply” the criteria linked to recent changes taking into account “the observations of institutions linked to the Holy See” and the province and “the experiences that have matured in recent years”.

In particular, in Article 1, compared to the 2020 Regulations, Paragraph 2 sets out in four points the goals pursued by the Regulations, in accordance with “the principles of the social teaching of the Church, and the canonical legal order of the Holy Church.” See the Vatican City State and the Encyclical Laudato si', as it is called. What is new in this context is the return to the legal legal system and to the principles of the aforementioned environmental encyclical. The four points, as in the previous document, relate to “sustainable use of internal resources”, “transparency of the procurement process”, “equal treatment and non-discrimination among bidders”, and “promoting effective competition among bidders”. In particular by taking measures against unjustified competitive agreements and corruption.”

(Vatican News)