Call for proposals Support for information measures relating to the Common Agricultural Policy for 2021 2021/C 16/05
Date: 2021-01-15
Institutions: Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, European Commission
Subjects: aid to agriculture, common agricultural policy, cooperation on agriculture, dissemination of EU information, dissemination of information, invitation to tender, rural development, rural region, sustainable agriculture








C_2021016EN.01000501.xml










15.1.2021   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 16/5






CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Support for information measures relating to the Common Agricultural Policy for 2021
(2021/C 16/05)


Table of contents



Page








0.

Introduction
6










1.

Background to the call
6










2.

Objectives – Themes & priorities – Activities that can be funded – Expected impact
6










3.

Timetable & available call budget
6










4.

Admissibility conditions
8










5.

Eligibility conditions
8










6.

Award criteria
10










7.

Other conditions
10










8.

Evaluation & award procedure
13










9.

Legal & financial set-up of the grants
14










10.

How to submit an application
15



0.   Introduction

This is an EU call for grants in the field of Agriculture and Rural Development policy under the Information Measures Relating to the Common Agricultural Policy Programme.
We invite you to read the call documentation carefully, i.e. this call for proposals and the Guide for applicants. These documents provide clarifications and answers to questions you may have when preparing your application:






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The call for proposals outlines the:






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objectives, themes and priorities, types of activities that can be financed and the expected result,










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timetable and available budget,










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eligibility, exclusion, selection and award criteria,










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evaluation procedure.














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The Guide for applicants outlines the:






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procedures to register and submit proposals online via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal (‘Portal’),










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recommendations for the preparation of the proposal,










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explanation on the application form (Proposal Template (Part A and B)), which describes the project,










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overview of the cost eligibility criteria.








1.   Background

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the EU’s most important policies. It is a partnership between agriculture and society and between Europe and its farmers. It is a common policy for all the countries and citizens of the EU and benefits them in various ways.
It supports farmers and improves agricultural production, maintains rural areas and landscapes, keeps the rural economy alive and helps tackle climate change and the sustainable management of natural resources.
The Information Measures Relating to the Common Agricultural Policy Programme supports the CAP by funding measures that provide information about it.
2.   Objectives – Themes & priorities – Target public


Objectives

The general objective of the call is to build trust within the EU and amongst all citizens, farmers and non-farmers alike. The common agricultural policy (CAP) is a policy for all the citizens of the EU and the benefits that it provides to them must be clearly demonstrated.
The key issues and messaging should be fully consistent with the Commission’s legal requirement to carry out information measures on the CAP within the meaning of Article 45 of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013.
The proposals submitted shall provide coherent, objective and comprehensive information, both inside and outside the Union, in order to give an accurate overall picture of the CAP.
The focus should be on addressing misperceptions and disinformation about European agriculture and the CAP using facts and backed up with data with a view to raising public awareness on the relevance of EU support to agriculture and rural development through the CAP.

Themes

The CAP plays a key role in supporting the EU’s farming sector and rural areas. It aims to ensure a sustainable agriculture with respect to economic, social and environmental aspects.
The proposals for information measures shall focus on illustrating how the future CAP as set out in particular in the CAP strategic plan proposal (1) will contribute towards the delivery of the Commission’s political priorities, in particular the European Green Deal (2). In the framework of the European Green Deal, the Commission adopted a Farm to Fork strategy (3) and the Biodiversity Strategy (4) for 2030, both of which address issues relevant to agriculture and rural areas.
The Farm to Fork strategy will enable the transition to a sustainable EU food system that safeguards food security, reduces the environmental and climate footprint of the EU food system and strengthens its resilience, protecting citizens’ health and ensuring the livelihoods of economic operators. The strategy sets concrete targets to transform the EUs food system and proposes ambitious measures to ensure that the healthy option is the easiest for EU citizens, including improved labelling to better meet consumers’ information needs on healthy, sustainable foods. The biodiversity strategy as it relates to farming promotes the uptake of agro-ecological practices and seeks to increase agricultural land dedicated to organic farming.
The future CAP will be an important instrument in managing the transition to sustainable food production systems and in strengthening the efforts of European farmers to contribute to the climate objectives of the EU and to protect the environment, as well as reaching the targets set out in the farm-to-fork and the biodiversity strategies.

Target public

The target public for the themes is the general public (in particular young people in urban areas) and/or farmers and other parties active in rural areas.

More specifically:






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For school children, teachers and university students: novel approaches should be used to engage with young people and raise their awareness of the CAP and the contribution that it makes in many areas such as the climate change challenge, food, healthy and high quality eating as a lifestyle choice, in relation also with the EU School Scheme for Milk, Fruit and Vegetables (5) and the Tartu Call (6).










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For stakeholders: stakeholders should be more aware of the contribution that the CAP makes to the support of sustainability of agriculture.




3.   Timetable & available budget


Timetable







Timing (planned)




Publication:


30.10.2020




Opening for submission:


3.11.2020




Deadline for submission:


21.1.2021 – 17.00 CET




Evaluation:


3.2.2021 to 22.3.2021




Information on evaluation result:


April 2021




Grant agreement signature:


June/July 2021




Starting date:


June/July 2021





Budget

The total available call budget is EUR 4 000 000.
Grants awarded are expected to range between EUR 75 000 and EUR 500 000.
The availability of the call budget still depends on the adoption of the budget 2021 by the budgetary authority.
We reserve the right not to award all available funds, depending on the applications received and the evaluation results.
4.   Admissibility conditions


Admissibility

Applications must be submitted before the call deadline (see timetable Section 3).
Applications must be submitted electronically via the Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Call Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are no longer possible.
Applications (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Electronic Submission System (not the documents available on the Call Topic page – they are only for information).
Your application must be readable, accessible and printable and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents (see Section 10).
5.   Eligibility conditions


Participants

The actions supported under this call are mono-beneficiary actions. This means that there is one legal entity applying for a grant.
The applicants must be legal entities established in an EU Member State (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)).
Entities which do not have legal personality under the applicable national law may participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons.
Natural persons are not eligible.
To prove eligibility, all applicants must register in the Participant Register – before the call deadline – and will be requested to upload the necessary documents showing legal status and origin later on.
Linked third parties (affiliated entities (7)) are allowed under the following conditions.
Legal entities having a legal or capital link with applicants, which is neither limited to the information measure nor established for the sole purpose of its implementation (e.g. members of networks, federations, trade unions), may take part in the information measure as affiliated entities, and may declare eligible costs.
The legal and capital link defining the affiliation encompasses three notions:






(i)


Control, as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings, amending Directive 2006/43/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directives 78/660/EEC and 83/349/EEC .




Entities affiliated to a beneficiary may hence be:






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entities directly or indirectly controlled by the beneficiary (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the beneficiary (granddaughter companies or second tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control,










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entities directly or indirectly controlling the beneficiary (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the beneficiary,










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entities under the same direct or indirect control as the beneficiary (sister companies).




Control should be based on holding a majority of voting rights, but control may also exist where there are agreements with fellow shareholders or members. In certain circumstances control may be effectively exercised where the parent holds a minority or none of the shares in the subsidiary. Member States may require that undertakings not subject to control, but which are managed on a unified basis or have a common administrative, managerial or supervisory body, be included in consolidated financial statements.






(ii)


Membership, i.e. the beneficiary is legally defined as a, e.g. network, federation, association in which the proposed affiliated entities also participate or the beneficiary participates in the same entity (e.g. network, federation, association) as the proposed affiliated entities.










(iii)


The specific case of public bodies and publicly owned entities




Publicly owned entities and public bodies (entities established as such under national, European or international law) are not always considered as affiliated entities (for example, public universities or research centres).
The notion of affiliation in the public sphere covers:






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the different levels of the administrative structure in the case of decentralised administration (e.g. national, regional or local ministries (in the case of separate legal entities) can be considered as affiliated to the State,










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a public body established by a public authority to serve an administrative purpose and which is supervised by the public authority. This condition is to be verified on the basis of the statutes or other acts establishing the public body. It does not necessarily entail that the public body is financed, in full or in part, from the public budget (e.g. national schools affiliated to the State).




The following are not entities affiliated to a beneficiary:






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entities that have entered into a (procurement) contract or subcontract with the beneficiary, act as concessionaires or delegates for public services for the beneficiary,










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entities that receive financial support from the beneficiary,










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entities that cooperate on a regular basis with the beneficiary on the basis of a memorandum of understanding or share some assets,










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entities that have signed a consortium agreement under the grant agreement,










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entities that have signed a franchise agreement that does not establish capital or legal link,










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entities that have signed a cooperation agreement for twinning projects.




If affiliated entities take part in the information measure, the application shall:






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identify such affiliated entities in the application form,










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contain the written agreement of the affiliated entities,










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provide the supporting documents allowing verification of their complying with the eligibility and non-exclusion criteria.




Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’ (8). If the action is in practice implemented by the members, they should however also participate (as linked third parties, otherwise their costs will not be eligible).

Activities

Eligible activities are the ones set out in Section 2 above.
The information measures should include one or several activities such as:






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production and distribution of multimedia or audiovisual material,










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web and social media outreach activities,










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media events,










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conferences, seminars, workshops and studies on CAP-related issues.




The following activities are not eligible:






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measures required by law,










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general or statutory meetings,










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financial support to third parties.





Geographical scope

The information measures must be implemented:






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in an EU Member State (multi-regional or national level), or










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in two or more Member States (EU level).





Duration

Projects may not be longer than 12 months.
6.   Award criteria

Admissible and eligible applications will be evaluated and ranked against of the following award criteria:






1.


Relevance: the ex ante analysis of the needs and the specific, measurable, attainable and relevant objective and its innovative character. (20 points; minimum required 10 points)










2.


Effectiveness: themes, messages and target public, detailed programme, timetable and ex post evaluation methodology. (35 points; minimum required 17,5 points)










3.


Efficiency: the cost-effectiveness in terms of the proposed resources. (25 points; minimum required 12,5 points)










4.


Quality of the project management: the quality of the procedures, the allocation of tasks in view of implementing the various activities of the proposed measure. (20 points; minimum required 10 points)







Award criteria


Minimum pass score


Maximum score




Relevance


10


20




Effectiveness


17,5


35




Efficiency


12,5


25




Quality of the project management


10


20




Overall (pass) scores


50


100








A maximum of 100 points will be awarded for the quality of the proposal. The required minimum overall score is 50 points and a minimum score of 50 % is required for each criterion.
Applications that pass the individual threshold AND the overall threshold will be considered for funding – within the limits of the available call budget.
Other applications will be rejected.
The evaluation procedure is explained further in Section 8.
7.   Other conditions


Financial capacity

Applicants must have stable and sufficient resources in their own structure to successfully implement the project and contribute their share. Organisations participating in several projects must have sufficient internal operational capacity to implement several projects. The financial capacity check will be done on the basis of the documents you will be requested to upload in the Participant Register (profit and loss account and balance sheet for the last two closed financial years, or for newly created entities possibly the business plan; for applicants requesting more than EUR 100 000: audit report produced by an approved external auditor, certifying the accounts for the last closed financial year).
If needed, it may also be done for linked third parties.
The analysis will take into account elements such as dependency on EU funding and deficit and revenue in previous years.
It will normally be done for all applicants, except:






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public bodies (entities established as public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations,










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if the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (low-value grant).




If we consider that your financial capacity is not satisfactory, we may request further information and if found unsatisfactory, reject the entire application.

  For more information, see Rules on Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment.

Operational capacity

Applicants must have the sufficient internal staff (9), the know-how and the qualifications to successfully implement the project (including sufficient experience in EU/transnational projects of comparable size).
This capacity will be assessed on the basis of the experience of the applicants and their internal staff.
Applicant will have to show this via the following information in the Proposal Template (Part B):






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general profiles (qualifications and experiences) of the internal staff responsible for managing and implementing the project,










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the organisation’s activity reports of last year,










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a list of EU-funded actions/projects for the last 4 years.




Additional supporting documents may be requested, if needed to confirm the operational capacity of any applicant.
Public bodies, Member States organisations and international organisations are exempted from the operational capacity check.

Exclusion (10)

Applicants that are subject to an EU administrative sanction (i.e. exclusion or financial penalty decision) (11) or in one of the following situations (12) are excluded from receiving EU grants and can therefore not participate:






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bankruptcy, winding up, affairs administered by the courts, arrangement with creditors, suspended business activities or other similar procedures (including procedures for persons with unlimited liability for the applicant’s debts),










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in breach of social security or tax obligations (including if done by persons with unlimited liability for the applicant’s debts),










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guilty of grave professional misconduct (13) (including if done by persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control, beneficial owners or natural persons who are essential for the award/implementation of the grant),










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committed fraud, corruption, links to a criminal organisation, money laundering, terrorism-related crimes (including terrorism financing), child labour or human trafficking (including if done by persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control, beneficial owners or natural persons who are essential for the award/implementation of the grant),










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shown significant deficiencies in complying with main obligations under an EU procurement contract, grant agreement or grant decision (including if done by persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control, beneficial owners or natural persons who are essential for the award/implementation of the grant),










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guilty of irregularities within the meaning of Article 1(2) of Regulation No 2988/95 (including if done by persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control, beneficial owners or natural persons who are essential for the award/implementation of the grant),










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created under a different jurisdiction with the intent to circumvent fiscal, social or other legal obligations in the country of origin or created another entity with this purpose (including if done by persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control, beneficial owners or natural persons who are essential for the award/implementation of the grant).




Applicants will also be refused if it turns out during the grant award procedure that they (14):






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misrepresented information required as a condition for participating in the grant award procedure or failed to supply that information,










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were previously involved in the preparation of grant award documents where this entails a distortion of competition that cannot be remedied otherwise (conflict of interest).











IMPORTANT







—


Linked third parties – Applicants may participate with linked third parties (i.e. affiliated entities) that receive funding. Linked third parties must comply with all the conditions set out in this call (just like applicants), but they do not sign the grant agreement and do not count towards the minimum eligibility criteria for consortium composition.










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Subcontractors – Subcontracting is allowed except for project’s core tasks and subject to strict limits (see Section 9).










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Registration – All applicants must register in the Participant Register – before the call deadline – and upload the necessary documents showing legal status and origin. Linked third parties can register later (during grant preparation).










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Completed/ongoing projects – Applications for projects that have already been completed will be rejected; applications for projects that have already started will be assessed on a case-by-case basis (in this case, no costs can be reimbursed for activities that took place before proposal submission).










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Balanced budget – Applicants must ensure a balanced budget and sufficient other resources to implement the project successfully (e.g. own contributions, income generated by the action, financial contributions from third parties). You may be requested to lower your estimated costs, if they are ineligible (including excessive).










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No-profit rule – Grants may NOT give a profit (i.e. surplus of receipts + EU grant over costs). This will be checked by us at the end of the projects. Any surplus would be deducted from the final grant awarded.










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No double funding – Any given action may receive only one grant from the EU budget. The project must therefore NOT receive any financial support under any other EU funding programme (including EU funding managed by authorities in EU Member States or other funding bodies, e.g. Regional Funds, Agricultural Funds, EIB loans, etc.). Cost items may NOT be declared twice under different EU actions.










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Combination with EU operating grants – Combination with EU operating grants is possible if the project remains outside the operating grant work programme and you make sure that cost items are clearly separated in your accounting and NOT declared twice. See the Guide for applicants for the detailed cost eligibility conditions for indirect costs.











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Multiple applications – You may NOT submit more than one application for this call. If you do, only one application will be accepted and evaluated (the applicants will be asked to withdraw one of them or it will be rejected).










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Language – You can submit your proposal in any official EU language. However, for reasons of efficiency, we strongly advise you to use English. If you need the call documents in another official EU language, please submit a request within 10 days after call publication (for the contact information, see Section 10). Please note that if selected for funding, you will be invited to sign a grant agreement with the European Commission. Such grant agreement is in English. All correspondence and reporting will be in English language only. For the preparation of the grant agreement, the beneficiary will be requested to provide a complete ‘Description of the Action’ in English language.










—


Applications that do not comply with all the call conditions will be rejected.








8.   Evaluation & award procedure

This call is subject to the standard submission and evaluation procedure (one-stage submission + one-step evaluation).
Applications will be checked by us for formal requirements (admissibility and eligibility) and will be evaluated by an evaluation committee against the operational capacity and award criteria and then listed in a ranked list according to their quality score.
Unsuccessful applications will be informed about their evaluation result (see timetable Section 3).
Successful applications will be invited for grant preparation.







IMPORTANT







—


No commitment for funding – Invitation to grant preparation does NOT constitute a formal commitment for funding. We will still need to make various legal checks before grant award: legal entity validation, financial capacity, exclusion check etc.










—


Grant preparation will involve a dialogue in order to fine-tune technical or financial aspects of the project and may require extra information from your side. It may also include adjustments to the proposal to address recommendations of the evaluation committee or other concerns. Compliance will be a pre-condition for receiving the grant.








9.   Legal & financial set-up of the grants

If your project is selected for funding, you will be asked to sign a grant agreement (available on Portal Reference Documents) using an EC corporate IT tool.
This grant agreement will set the framework for your grant and its terms and conditions, in particular provisions on deliverables, reporting and payments.

Starting date & project duration

The project starting date and duration will be fixed in your grant agreement (Art. 3 GA). Normally the starting date will be after the grant signature. Retroactive starting date can be granted exceptionally for duly justified reasons – but never earlier than the proposal submission date.
Project duration: 12 months.

Maximum grant amount, reimbursement of eligible costs & funding rate

All grant parameters (maximum grant amount, funding rate, total eligible costs etc.) will be fixed in your grant agreement (Art. 5)).
Grant awarded: between EUR 75 000 and EUR 500 000 per proposal (see Section 3 above).
The grant will be a reimbursement of actual costs. This means that it will reimburse ONLY certain types of costs (eligible costs) and ONLY those costs you actually incurred for your project (NOT the budgeted costs).
The costs will be reimbursed at the funding rate fixed in the grant agreement (60 %).
EU grants may NOT produce a profit. If there is a profit (i.e. surplus of receipts + EU grant over costs), we will deduct it from your final grant amount.
The final grant amount you will receive will therefore depend on a variety of criteria (actual costs incurred and project income; eligibility; compliance with all the rules under the grant agreement, etc.).

Cost eligibility rules

For the cost eligibility rules, see the model grant agreement (Art. 6) and the Guide for applicants.
Special cost eligibility rules for this call:






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7 % fixed flat-rate for indirect costs,










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depreciation costs for equipment,










—


project activities must take place in one of the eligible countries,










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financial support to third parties is not allowed,










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subcontracting of action tasks is subject to special rules and must be approved by us (either as part of your proposal or in the final report),










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in-kind contributions against payment are allowed (in-kind contributions for free are not prohibited, but they are cost-neutral, i.e. cannot be declared as cost and will not be counted as receipts),










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VAT – please note that there are new rules in place since 2013 for public entities (VAT paid by beneficiaries that are public bodies acting as public authority is NOT eligible),










—


costs for the introductory meeting (see Section 10) will be eligible as travel costs (2 persons, return ticket to Brussels, accommodation for one night) – if the meeting takes place after the project starting date set out in the grant agreement.





Reporting & payment arrangements

The reporting and payment arrangements will be fixed in the grant agreement (Art. 15 and 16).
There will be no pre-financing and no interim payments
At the end of the project, you will be invited to submit a technical and financial report used for calculating the final grant amount.

Deliverables

Standard deliverables will be listed in the grant agreement (Art. 14). The project-specific deliverables will be listed in Annex 1 GA.
Standard deliverables for this call: Monthly Activity Reports.

Pre-financing guarantee

Not applicable

Special provisions

IPR rules: see model grant agreement (Art. 19)
Promotion & visibility of EU funding: see model grant agreement (Art. 22)

Cost rejection, grant reduction, recovery, suspension & termination

The grant agreement (Chapter 6) provides for the measures we may take in case of breach of contract (and other violations of law).

Liability regime for recoveries

Not applicable (mono-beneficiary action).
10.   How to submit an application

All applications must be submitted electronically via the Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Call Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are no longer possible.
The application will have 3 parts:






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Part A (to be filled in directly online) – contains administrative information about the applicant organisations and the summarised budget for the proposal,










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Part B (to be filled out as word template and uploaded as PDF file) – contains the description of the action which covers the technical content of the proposal,










—


Annexes & supporting documents (to be uploaded as PDF files).




Mandatory annexes & supporting documents (directly available in the Submission System) for this call:






—


detailed budget table,










—


CVs of core project team,










—


activity report of last year.




The submission process is explained in the Online Manual (together with detailed instructions for the IT tool).

Contact

For questions on the Portal Submission System, please contact the IT Helpdesk.
Non-IT-related questions should be sent to the following email address: agri-grants@ec.europa.eu
Please indicate clearly the reference of the call for proposal and the topic to which your question relates (see Call document cover page).







IMPORTANT







—


Consult the Portal Call Topic page regularly. We will use it to publish updates and additional information on the call (call updates).










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Don’t wait until the end.










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Questions received later than 7 days before the call deadline cannot be answered.










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We strongly advise you to complete your proposal sufficiently in advance of the deadline, to avoid any last minute technical problems. Any problems due to last minute submissions (e.g. congestion, etc.) will be at your risk. The call deadline will NOT be extended.










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Before submitting a proposal, all applicants must be registered in the Participant Register and obtain a participant identification code (PIC) (one for each applicant).










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By submitting their proposal, all applicants accept:






—


the terms and conditions of this call (as described in this Call document and the documents it refers to)










—


to use the electronic exchange system in accordance with the Portal Terms & Conditions.














—


After the call deadline, the proposal is locked and can no longer be changed.










—


You may be contacted later on if there is a need to clarify certain aspects of your proposal or for the correction of clerical mistakes.










—


You may be asked to submit additional documents later on (e.g. for the legal entity validation, LEAR appointment and financial capacity check).










—


We intend to organise an introductory meeting for successful applicants to discuss project management, administrative and financial aspects and reporting obligations. Participation by the persons in charge of project coordination and financial matters is mandatory.










—


We are committed to transparency. Each year, information about EU grants awarded is published on the Europa website. This includes:






—


the beneficiaries’ names,










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the beneficiaries’ addresses,










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the purpose for which the grant was awarded,










—


the maximum amount awarded.




The publication can exceptionally be waived (on reasoned and duly substantiated request), if there is a risk that the disclosure could jeopardise the rights and freedoms under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights or harm your commercial interests.










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Data privacy – The submission of an application under this call involves the collection, use and processing of personal data (such as name, address and CV). This data will be processed in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725. It will be processed solely for the purpose of evaluating your proposal (and subsequent management of your grant and, if needed, programme monitoring, evaluation and communication). Details are explained in the Portal Privacy Statement.










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Cancellation – There may be circumstances which may require the cancellation of the call. In this case, you will be informed via a call update. Please note that cancellations are without entitlement to compensation.










(1)  COM(2018)392 final ; factsheet: How the future CAP will contribute to the EU Green Deal, SWD(2020) 93 final.

(2)  COM(2019) 640 final.

(3)  COM(2020) 381 final.

(4)  COM/2020/380 final.

(5)  Regulation (EU) 2016/791 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 amending Regulations (EU) No 1308/2013 and (EU) No 1306/2013 as regards the aid scheme for the supply of fruit and vegetables, bananas and milk in educational establishments.

(6)  The Tartu Call is designed to promote and support healthier lifestyles for European citizens of all ages, with a special emphasis on the young generation: children who learn healthy habits are more likely to maintain them in later life.

(7)  See Article 187 Financial Regulation (EU) 2018/1046.

(8)  For the definitions, see Articles 187(2) and 197(2)(c) Financial Regulation (EU) 2018/1046.

(9)  Salaried staff or in-house consultants only.

(10)  See Article 136(1) of Financial Regulation (EU) 2018/1046.

(11)  See Article 136(1) Financial Regulation (EU) 2018/1046.

(12)  See Articles 136(1) and 141(1) Financial Regulation (EU) 2018/1046.

(13)  Professional misconduct includes: violation of ethical standards of the profession, wrongful conduct with impact on professional credibility, false declarations/misrepresentation of information, participation in a cartel or other agreement distorting competition, violation of IPR, attempting to influence decision-making processes or obtain confidential information from public authorities to gain advantage.

(14)  See Article 141(1) Financial Regulation (EU) 2018/1046.