Legal Perspective

LEX SPECIALIS FOR EXPO 2027: LEGALIZED NON-TRANSPARENCY

Through a special law adopted for the EXPO 2027 project in Belgrade, and addendum to this special law, the authorities have created a legal framework that allows the spending of public funds without applying the Law on Public Procurement. 

Article 14 of the EXPO 2027 Law provides for the establishment of state-owned companies that have the status of investors and that will not apply the Law on Public Procurement, but will instead define their own procurement rules and the “ensuring of transparency of the procedure”.

In other words –  institutions that spend public money determine themselves how that money will be spent.

This provision has been operationalized through the Regulation on the rules of the procurement procedure for goods, services or works necessary for the implementation of EXPO BELGRADE 2027 (“Official Gazette of the RS”, No. 8/2024), adopted by the Government on February 6, 2024.

Transparency Serbia has submitted an initiative (“Special EXPO Law and its application”) to the Constitutional Court to assess the constitutionality of Article 14 of the EXPO Law, citing serious procedural and constitutional issues, including:

• violation of procedures during the adoption of the law;
• exclusion of EXPO projects from the public procurement system;
• granting the Government authority to regulate, by decree, an area that is not regulated by law at all.

It is particularly problematic that such an exemption is contrary to Serbia’s international obligations, including the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union, which requires transparent and competitive public procurement.

Additionally, the law was adopted without public debate and without consultations with the public, although Article 77 of the Law on State Administration obliges state bodies to ensure public participation in the drafting of laws.

• “EXPO 2027: PLAY for Humanity” – Human safety and health is NOT A GAME

A review of the Ministry of Finance website and the e-Consultations portal confirms that no such discussion took place.

At the same time, the public has never been presented with analyses of the key consequences of this law:

• how it will affect owners of land subject to expropriation
• whether the risks of corruption and overpriced projects are increasing
• whether the quality and oversight of construction are being reduced
• nor how the public interest is being protected

---

None of these questions have been answered.

---

The EXPO 2027 Law therefore represents a precedent in which massive public projects are excluded from systems of control and transparency –  precisely at a time when billions of euros of public funds will be spent.

---

In short

For the purposes of EXPO 2027, the government has adopted a special law that allows large public projects to be carried out outside the standard public procurement system.
This means that billions of euros of public money can be spent under a special legal regime.

Serbian lex specialis remains fundamentally incomparable to those of the Paris Olympics or the Osaka World Expo, as the latter serve as temporary, project-specific frameworks for global events, whereas the Serbian model is a permanent circumvention of standard legal and urban planning protections, way beyond the scope of Expo project.

• Did Paris Olympics and Osaka Expo waive occupancy permits too, as EXPO 2027 director claims?

How this works?

How much money is involved

Estimates suggest that 17.8 billion euros of public funds will be spent within EXPO projects.