(80)In order to make procedures faster and more efficient, time limits for participation in procurement procedures should be kept as short as possible without creating undue barriers to access for economic operators from across the internal market and in particular SMEs. It should therefore be kept in mind that, when fixing the time limits for the receipt of tenders and requests to participate, contracting authorities should take account in particular of the complexity of the contract and the time required to draw up tenders, even if this entails setting time limits that are longer than the minima provided for under this Directive. The use of electronic means of information and communication, in particular full electronic availability to economic operators, tenderers and candidates of procurement documents and electronic transmission of communications leads, on the other hand, to increased transparency and time savings. Therefore, provision should be made for reducing the minimum time limits in line with the rules set by the GPA and subject to the condition that they are compatible with the specific mode of transmission envisaged at Union level. Furthermore, contracting authorities should have the opportunity to further shorten the time limits for receipt of requests to participate and of tenders in cases where a state of urgency renders the regular time limits impracticable, but does not make a regular procedure with publication impossible. Only in exceptional situations where extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting authority concerned that are not attributable to that contracting authority makes it impossible to conduct a regular procedure even with shortened time limits, contracting authorities should, in so far as strictly necessary, have the possibility to award contracts by negotiated procedure without prior publication. This might be case where natural catastrophes require immediate action.