The destruction in the flood area is devastating.

It is therefore natural to despair of rebuilding before it has begun.

Just rebuilding the private houses seems a difficult undertaking.

One suspects even worse things when one thinks of bridges and streets, schools or kindergartens that have to be built in no time at all.

Large-scale public-sector projects often took years, if not decades.

Corinna Budras

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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There are already calls for a relaxation of the procurement law, which must be observed in public contracts. A new road section can only be built if the contract for the construction has been put out to tender - across Europe. Then the offers of the companies tumble in, which have to be properly checked. The principle of economic efficiency applies in order to save taxpayers' money. And that takes time.

In times of crisis, on the other hand, everything goes much faster, as the corona pandemic taught us. Long lines shrink into short service routes. The Ministry of Health's quick masks procurement is not the best example of this. After all, things went wrong. The University Hospital Düsseldorf provides better evidence. It only took a few months last year to build a new intensive care hospital to care for corona patients. Procurement lawyer Ute Jasper from the Heuking law firm advised the university clinic on the procedure: “Procurement law is sufficiently flexible to respond to emergencies such as those in flood areas. It's a lot better than its reputation, ”she says. For example, the procurement regulation allows refraining from a "participation competition" if "extremely urgent,compelling reasons "exist.

Orders can be placed directly

There should be no doubt about that in the event of the flood disaster.

In this situation, orders can also be awarded directly to companies that appear particularly suitable to cope with the task in a short period of time.

"The problem is not the rules per se, but that the public sector sometimes does not know the craft kit exactly," criticized Jasper with reference to the Corona crisis: "The criticism of the procurement of masks was not sparked by the rules, but by the fact that the service description of the Ministry of Health was inadequate. "

The lawyer reminds that the rules of public procurement law are fundamentally sensible. “They weren't set up out of pure desire for bureaucracy, but to award contracts fairly and inexpensively,” she says and warns: “Now the adventurers are wandering through the country and trying to cash in on the plight of the people. We already saw that in the Corona crisis. "

The Economic Council of the CDU, on the other hand, sees a need for change, but one could also orientate oneself on previous experiences, for example for the period after reunification: "Flood areas should be declared special zones for planning and awarding procedures," demands Wolfgang Steiger, Secretary General of the Economic Council . In normal times, it is not only the procurement law that causes trouble, but also the planning law, which provides for excessive hearing rights for residents.

In the disaster area, however, the main aim is to replace old bridges and roads that have been in service for years without attracting protests. There is also the option of classifying the construction project as “replacement new buildings” in order to implement them not via a complicated plan approval procedure, but rather as a simple “planning permit”, says Steiger. “This saves valuable time.” In addition, planning and tendering procedures for routes and their associated bridge structures should be bundled.