Article 38

1. Procurement under this Regulation shall be carried out by the Commission in accordance with the rules set out in the Financial Regulation for its own procurement. 2. Where duly justified by extreme urgency or strictly necessary in order to adapt to unforeseen circumstances in the development of the internal market emergency, and provided the modification does not substantially alter the subject matter of the contract, the Commission may in agreement with the contractor: allow the contract which has been signed to be modified, above the threshold of 50 % and up to 100 % of the initial contract value; or in common agreement with the simple majority of the participating Member States, allow other Member States to join a contract that has been signed, or to sign an additional contract with the selected contractor. 3. A modification shall be considered to be substantially altering the subject matter of the contract where it renders the contract materially different in substance from the one initially concluded, namely where one or more of the following conditions are met: the modification introduces or removes significant conditions which, had they been part of the initial procurement procedure, would have allowed for the admission of other tenderers than those initially selected or for the acceptance of a tender other than that originally accepted, would have attracted additional participants in the procurement procedure, or would not have led to the selection of the winning tenderer; the modification significantly changes the economic balance of the contract in favour of the contractor in a manner which was not provided for in the initial contract; the modification significantly extends the scope of the contract.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-27 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.