WRITTEN QUESTION E-0842/02

by Jan Andersson (PSE) and Peter Skinner (PSE) to the Commission

(26 March 2002)

Subject: The Reprendre City of Tomorrow project and application deadlines

We have been contacted by the Blekinge Institute in the Swedish city of Karlskrona and by the University of Kent at Medway in the UK. We were informed that their project application Reprendre City of Tomorrow (proposal No: EVK4-2001-00256 Reprendre) was rejected by the Commission because the application was slightly late in arriving at the Commission's offices.

According to the information we have at our disposal, the late arrival of the application was caused by a strike on Belgian railways. We take the view that that was an event that the applicants could not possibly have prevented or foreseen. We therefore find it remarkable and unreasonable that the Commission would not accept the existence of force majeure, especially since we understand that the Commission regards genuinely exceptional circumstances of this nature as viable arguments in the event of failure to meet project output deadlines. Moreover, we feel that it must be virtually impossible for EU citizens to understand and accept that applications that have been thoroughly prepared, frequently at considerable cost, are not even assessed by the Commission because of a train strike or similar.

1. In light of the above, would it be possible for the Commission to reconsider its initial judgment regarding the City of Tomorrow application and to assess it as though it had arrived on time?

2. Would it not be reasonable, as a general rule, to apply a system whereby the date of posting (as evidenced by the postmark) is taken as the basis for determining if an application is sent within the deadline or not?

Answer given by Mr Busquin on behalf of the Commission

(25 April 2002)

1. The choice of method of submitting projects (hard copy or electronically) and sending in proposals in response to the call for proposals concerned (EESD-ESD-3) was left to the discretion of tenderers. In the case in point, the proposers chose to deliver their proposal in person and made arrangements to deliver it on 15 October 2001 at 16h30, 30 minutes before the expiry of the deadline, even though the call for proposals was published on 15 November 2000, 11 months earlier. Given the frequent delays that can occur with transport systems, this extremely small margin was a considerable risk that the tenderers took deliberately.

The force majeure argument cannot be invoked here. The Commission complied with all the rules laid down for the evaluation of proposals, and can only express its regrets to the tenderers, but cannot go back on its decision to declare the proposal ineligible. This position was explained in a letter dated 19 March 2002 replying to the Members of Parliament.

2. Unlike earlier calls for proposals, the EESD-ESD-3 call referred to the delivery and not the sending of proposals. Earlier evaluations had been disrupted as result of late receipt of proposals caused by delays in delivery by the various European postal services. This prompted the Commission to adopt this new arrangement, which has proved broadly satisfactory.