This master's thesis addresses the issue of public procurement efficiency within the construction sector in the Czech Republic and provides a comparative perspective on practices in Portugal. The primary objective is to identify the actual behavior of contracting authorities regarding the setting of award criteria through quantitative data analysis and to determine the extent to which the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) principle is utilized in the Czech environment as opposed to the evaluation on the lowest bid price criterion. The analytical section processes an extensive dataset which, after data filtration, contains more than 40,000 public contracts from the period 2015–2022. The results demonstrate the strongly conservative nature of the Czech market, where nearly 80% of contracts are evaluated exclusively based on the lowest price. A detailed analysis further reveals that even in cases of multi-criteria evaluation, qualitative parameters are assigned only marginal weight, with the construction period being the most frequent supplementary criterion. Finally, a comparison with Portuguese construction practice is presented, showing that a significantly more balanced price-quality ratio can be achieved within the comparable EU legislative framework. The thesis thus identifies structural differences in procurement culture and highlights gaps in the professionalization of Czech contracting authorities.