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This paper focuses on sustainable public procurement (SPP) and its role in public procurement of the members of the Visegrad Group (Hungarian, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic). Sustainable public procurement is a current trend in public purchasing around the world. The European Union's sustainable development policy, which respects the objectives of the 2030 Agenda, seeks to influence the public procurement policies of the members of the European Union. Every country, including the Visegard Group countries is trying to implement sustainable development criteria in its procurement process and to change legislation. The aim of this paper is to compare the implementation of public procurement in the Czech Republic with other members of the Visegrad Group (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary) and analyse how the public procurement (tenders) respects the criteria of sustainable public procurement in the case of the selected public procurements (tenders) in rail transport. We analyse the public procurement process and investigate the possibility/appropriateness of using social responsibility criteria in the individual phases of the procurement process (award criteria). The results show that there are different methods of implementing SPP in the V4 countries. There are significant differences between the regions. Based on the results of our research and analysis of the selected tenders, we concluded that the principle of social responsibility needs to be reflected in all steps, i.e. in the formulation of the subject of the public contract, the preparation of the contractual terms and the selection of evaluation criteria in their qualitative form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population health and food safety is one of the main priorities of the agro-industrial complex and the economic policies of governments. This is also reflected in the health safety of the meat in the event of infectious diseases. Food safety policy is linked to public spending by the state, which also takes responsibility for the health of the population. This paper deals with the analysis of the economic impacts of the Mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy - BSE) occurrence in Czech Republic, namely the financial compensations to the farmers whose herds had been affected and the costs of animal killing and carcass disposal in the rendering plant. The data were obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture of Czech Republic, the State Veterinary Administration and the Czech Statistical Office. Original scientific research reflects the period from the first occurrence of the disease to the end of 2019. Between February, 2001 and the end of 2019, a total of 1 977 881 cows were examined and 30 cases of the BSE were detected. Consequently, 4243 cows in cohorts were killed and their carcasses were safely disposed of. The total of the compensations in this period reached EUR 8 013 000. Of these, 80.6% (EUR 6 458 000) were compensations for the value of the killed animals, 12.7% (EUR 1 020 000) for the related costs, i.e., killing, safe disposal of carcasses and the examination for the BSE, and 6.7% (EUR 535 000) for the losses due to non-materialised production. The costs associated with the payment of compensations are therefore significantly lower than if the real effects of the disease on the health of the population were affected. The fact that in the last 10 years the disease has not occurred in the Czech Republic corresponds to the improving situation in EU countries, so the Czech Republic has been recognised as BSE negligible risk country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]