Article 38

The Commission may accept that procurement rules and procedures are equivalent to its own if the following conditions are met: they comply with the principle of broad competition of tenderers to obtain the best value for money, and negotiated procedures are limited to reasonable amounts or are duly justified; they ensure transparency with adequate ex ante publication, in particular of calls for tenders, and adequate ex post publication of contractors; they ensure equal treatment, proportionality and non-discrimination; they prevent conflicts of interests throughout the entire procurement procedure. National law of Member States or third countries transposing Directive 2004/18/EC shall be considered equivalent to the rules applied by the institutions in accordance with the Financial Regulation. The Commission may accept that grant rules and procedures are equivalent to its own if the following conditions are met: they comply with the principles of proportionality, sound financial management, equal treatment and non-discrimination; they ensure transparency with adequate publication of calls for proposals, direct award procedures being limited to reasonable amounts or being duly justified, and adequate ex post publication of beneficiaries taking account of the principle of proportionality; they prevent conflicts of interests throughout the entire grant award procedure; they provide that grants may not be cumulative or awarded retrospectively, that they must, as a rule, involve co-financing and that they may not have the purpose or the effect of producing a profit for the beneficiary. The Commission may accept that the accounting systems and the internal control systems used by entities and persons to be entrusted with budget implementation tasks on behalf of the Commission are providing equivalent levels of protection of the financial interests of the Union and of reasonable assurance of achieving the management objectives if they comply with the principles laid down in Article 32 of the Financial Regulation.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-04 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.