CHAPTER 3

Applications shall be made on the form established in accordance with the joint standards laid down pursuant to Article 192(a) and made available by the authorising officers responsible, and in accordance with the criteria laid down in the basic act and the call for proposals. The supporting documents referred to in the second subparagraph of Article 131(3) of the Financial Regulation may consist in particular in the profit and loss account and the balance sheet for the last financial year for which the accounts were closed. The estimated budget for the action or work programme attached to the application shall have revenue and expenditure in balance, subject to provisions for contingencies or possible variations in exchange rates which may be authorised in duly justified cases, and shall indicate the estimated eligible costs of the action or work programme. Where the application concerns grants for an action for which the amount exceeds EUR 750000 or operating grants which exceed EUR 100000, an audit report produced by an approved external auditor shall be submitted. That report shall certify the accounts for the last financial year available. The first subparagraph of this paragraph shall apply only to the first application made by a beneficiary to an authorising officer responsible in any one financial year. In the case of agreements between the Commission and a number of beneficiaries, the thresholds set in the first subparagraph shall apply to each beneficiary. In case of partnerships referred to in Article 178, the audit report referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph, covering the last two financial years available must be produced before signature of the framework partnership agreement or notification of the framework partnership decision. The authorising officer responsible may, depending on a risk assessment, waive the obligation of audit report referred to in the first subparagraph for education and training establishments and, in case of agreements with a number of beneficiaries, beneficiaries who have accepted joint and several liabilities or who do not bear any financial responsibility. The first subparagraph of this paragraph shall not apply to public bodies and the international organisations referred to in Article 43. The applicant shall indicate the sources and amounts of Union funding received or applied for the same action or part of the action or for its functioning during the same financial year as well as any other funding received or applied for the same action. Applicants shall declare on their honour that they are not in one of the situations listed in Articles 106(1) and 107 of the Financial Regulation, except in the cases provided for in points (a) and (b) of Article 131(4) of the Financial Regulation. The authorising officer responsible may, depending on a risk assessment, request that successful applicants provide the evidence referred to in Article 143. Where requested by the authorising officer responsible, successful applicants shall supply such evidence, unless there is a material impossibility recognised by the authorising officer responsible or such evidence has already been submitted for the purposes of another grant or procurement procedure, provided that the documents are not more than one year old counting from their date of issue and that they are still valid. When an application for a grant is submitted by an applicant which does not have legal personality, in accordance with Article 131(2) of the Financial Regulation, the representatives of that applicant shall prove that they have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on behalf of the applicant and that the applicant has financial and operational capacity equivalent to that of legal persons. Where several entities satisfy the criteria for applying for a grant and together form one entity, that entity may be treated by the authorising officer responsible as the sole applicant, provided that the application identifies the entities involved in the proposed action or work programme as part of the applicant. Financial or administrative penalties, or both, may be imposed on applicants who have made false declarations or substantial errors, or committed irregularities or fraud, in accordance with the conditions laid down in Article 145. Such financial or administrative penalties, or both, may also be imposed on beneficiaries who have been found in serious breach of their contractual obligations. The eligibility criteria shall be published in the call for proposals. The eligibility criteria shall determine the conditions for participating in a call for proposals. Those criteria shall be established with due regard for the objectives of the action and shall comply with the principles of transparency and non-discrimination. The selection criteria shall be published in the call for proposals and shall be such as to make it possible to assess the applicant’s financial and operational capacity to complete the proposed action or work programme. The applicant must have stable and sufficient sources of funding to maintain his activity throughout the period during which the action is being carried out or the year for which the grant is awarded and to participate in its funding. The applicant must have the professional competencies and qualifications required to complete the proposed action or work programme unless specifically provided otherwise in the basic act. Financial and operational capacity shall be verified in particular on the basis of an analysis of any of the supporting documents referred to in Article 196 and requested by the authorising officer responsible in the call for proposals. If no supporting documents were requested in the call for proposals and if the authorising officer responsible has doubts about the financial or operational capacity of applicants, he shall request them to provide any appropriate documents. In the case of the partnerships referred to in Article 178, that verification shall be performed before signature of the framework partnership agreement or notification of the framework partnership decision. The award criteria shall be published in the call for proposals. The award criteria shall be such as to enable grants to be awarded either to the actions which maximise the overall effectiveness of the Union programme which they implement or to the bodies whose work programme is designed to attain the same result. Those criteria shall be defined in such a way as to ensure also that the Union funds are properly managed. The award criteria shall be applied in such a way as to enable the selection of planned actions or work programmes which the Commission can be confident will comply with its objectives and priorities and guarantee the visibility of the Union financing. The award criteria shall be defined in such a way that it will be possible subsequently to carry out an evaluation. The authorising officer responsible shall appoint a committee to evaluate the proposals, unless the Commission decides otherwise in the framework of a specific sectorial programme. The committee shall be made up of at least three persons representing at least two organisational entities of the institutions or bodies referred to in Articles 62 and 208 of the Financial Regulation with no hierarchical link between them. To avoid any conflict of interests, those persons shall be subject to the obligations laid down in Article 57 of the Financial Regulation. In the representations and local units referred to in Article 72 of this Regulation and the delegated bodies referred to in Articles 62 and 208 of the Financial Regulation, if there are no separate entities, the requirement of organisational entities with no hierarchical link between them shall not apply. Outside experts may assist the committee by decision of the authorising officer responsible. The authorising officer responsible shall ensure that these experts satisfy the obligations laid down in Article 57 of the Financial Regulation. The authorising officer responsible shall, where appropriate, divide the process into several procedural stages. The rules governing the process shall be announced in the call for proposals. Where a call for proposals specifies a two-stage submission procedure, only those applicants whose proposals satisfy the evaluation criteria for the first stage shall be requested to submit a complete proposal in the second stage. Where a call for proposals specifies a two-stage evaluation procedure, only those proposals that pass the first stage, based on the evaluation against a limited set of criteria, shall go forward for further evaluation. The applicants whose proposals are rejected at any stage shall be informed in accordance with Article 133(3) of the Financial Regulation. Each subsequent stage of the procedure must be clearly distinct from the previous one. The same documents and information shall not be required to be provided more than once during the same procedure. The evaluation committee or, where appropriate, the authorising officer responsible may ask an applicant to provide additional information or to clarify the supporting documents submitted in connection with the application, provided that such information or clarification does not substantially change the proposal. In accordance with Article 96 of the Financial Regulation, in the case of obvious clerical errors, the evaluation committee or the authorising officer may refrain from doing so only in duly justified cases. The authorising officer shall keep appropriate records of contacts with applicants during the procedure. Upon completion of its work, the members of the evaluation committee shall sign a record of all the proposals examined, containing an assessment of their quality and identifying those which may receive funding. Those records may be signed in an electronic system providing sufficient authentication of the signatory. Where necessary that record shall rank the proposals examined, provide recommendations on the maximum amount to award and possible non-substantial adjustments to the grant application. The record shall be kept for future reference. The authorising officer responsible may invite an applicant to adjust its proposal in the light of the recommendations of the evaluation committee. The authorising officer responsible shall keep appropriate records of contacts with applicants during the procedure. The authorising officer responsible shall, after evaluation, take his decision giving at least: the subject and the overall amount of the decision; the name of the successful applicants, the title of the actions, the amounts accepted and the reasons for that choice, including where it is inconsistent with the opinion of the evaluation committee; the names of any applicants rejected and the reasons for that rejection. Paragraphs 1, 2 and 4 of this Article are not compulsory for the award of grants pursuant to Article 190 of this Regulation and to Article 125(7) of the Financial Regulation. Rejected applicants shall be informed as soon as possible of the outcome of the evaluation of their application and in any case within 15 calendar days after information has been sent to the successful applicants.

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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.