Selection and awards criteria

• The Contracting Authorities will draw up clear and non-discriminatory selection criteria in every procurement procedure for the purposes of assessing the financial, economic, technical and professional capacity of the tenderer. Before deciding on the appropriate criteria the Contracting Authorities have to consider which proof documents should be requested for the relevant criteria.

• The Contracting Authority may lay down minimum capacity levels below which it cannot select candidates. Any tenderer or candidate may be asked to prove that it is authorised to perform the contract under national law, as evidenced by inclusion in a trade or professional register, or a sworn declaration or certificate, membership of a specific organisation, express authorisation, or entry in the VAT register.

• The Contracting Authorities shall specify in the procurement notice or in the call for expressions of interest or the invitation to submit a tender, the references chosen to test the status and the legal capacity of tenderers or candidates. The information requested by the Contracting Authority as proof of the financial, economic, technical and professional capacity of the candidate or tenderer and the minimum capacity levels required fixed by the selection criteria may not go beyond the subject of the contract.

• The applicants/tenderers will in the application/tender submission form be requested to submit information in response to their economic, financial, professional and technical capacity according to the selection criteria specified in the tender documents.
  For service and supply procedures, only successful tenderers have to supply proof documents to support the information submitted in the application/tender submission form before the award of the contract. For works procedures the mentioned proofs have to be submitted in accordance with the tender dossier.

• An economic operator may, where appropriate and for a particular contract, rely on the capacities of other entities, regardless of the legal nature of the links which it has with them. It must in that case prove to the Contracting Authority that it will have at its disposal the resources necessary for performance of the contract. Such entities, for instance the parent company of the economic operator, must respect the same rules of eligibility and notably that of nationality, as the economic operator.

• For contracts with a value less than the international thresholds (service < € 200.000, supply < € 150.000 and works < € 5.000.000), the Contracting Authority may, depending on its assessment of the risks, decide not to require these proofs, but then no pre-financing shall be made unless a financial guarantee of an equivalent amount is provided. (However, where the Contractor is a public body, the requirement of a pre-financing guarantee in general may be waived).

Sources and useful links:

• Practical Guide to Contract procedures for EC external actions