EUROPEAN COMMISSION Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME)

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1 EUROPEAN COMMISSION Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) Unit A1 COSME Call for proposals - COS-WP Diversifying the EU tourism offer and products- Sustainable transnational tourism products 2014 EASME-COSME-SUSTAINABLE-TOURISM_CALL-2014@ec.europa.eu Questions and Answers Version 12 03/10/2014 INDEX A. Background of the call B. Activities C. Timetable D. Available budget and funding of projects E. Admissibility Requirements F. Eligibility Criteria G. Exclusion Criteria H. Selection criteria I. Award criteria J. Legal commitments K. Financial provisions L. Publicity & Data protection M. Submission of proposals New Questions (and Answers) from the previous version are highlighted in a yellow background. Corrected/ updated answers/ additional information in blue background Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME), B-1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË

2 A. Background of the call A.1. We would like to make our archeological heritage more attractive, is it possible to get information on your call? Please read the text of the call: B. Activities C. Timetable C.1. What is the deadline for submission of the proposals? The deadline for submitting proposals for this call is 7 October 2014 C.2 Could you please let me know if this is an annual call? Or if this is the only call for proposals ( in this field) under this programming period? It is intention of the Commission to promote sustainable tourism also among other initiatives - via an annual call for proposal. However, the work program of the Commission is adopted yearly and it is submitted to the so called "comitology procedure". We cannot guarantee that this call for proposal will be approved in the next years by the appropriate committee of Ministers of the EU. At the same time, even though the call should be repeated yearly, we cannot guarantee that the terms of references will remain the same. D. Available budget and funding of projects D.1. The call indicates that an estimated budget of the action is to be attached to the application form, what is the appropriate template? Appropriate template is the Technical Annexe 2. D.2 In Section 8.1, the grant amount of , refers to the total grant amount requested by all participants together, or by each one? The amount indicated refers to the entire/total grant. E. Admissibility Requirements 2

3 F. Eligibility Criteria F.1. We would like to know if a legal entity from Serbia can lead a consortium Entities from 3 rd countries likely to participate to the programme are considered eligible pending the enter into force of the participation agreement. Nevertheless, in case the participation agreement is ratified, a Serbian entity could lead a consortium. For further information on eligible countries please read: tive Section 6.2 of the call says that countries participating in COSME under art. 6 of the COSME regulation are eligible. However, should an organisation of Serbia, or any non-eu country likely to participate in COSME, be part of a consortium, and if the proposal is selected, the contract to the Coordinator will only be sent when the non EU country has formally signed the agreement to be part of COSME. Updates on participation of third countries to COSME can be found on the page However, we draw your attention that as mentioned under the point 6.1 of the call text page 7, 8 : In addition, participation of partners from other countries (than the ones covered by the above points (a) and (b) is allowed if relevant for the project. But any costs derived from these countries are not eligible, nor these additional countries will not be considered for verifying the eligibility criterion of a minimum of 5 partners from 4 different countries. Countries which will be considered for verifying this criterion will only be the ones covered by point 6.1 (a),(b). F.2 We would like to know if a Switzerland company is an eligible applicant? As there is no legal basis under which Switzerland could participate in the COSME programme, Switzerland cannot be considered as an eligible country under this call. For further information on eligible countries please read: tive However, we draw your attention that as mentioned under the point 6.1 of the call text page 7, 8 : In addition, participation of partners from other countries (than the ones covered by the above points (a) and (b) is allowed if relevant for the project. But any costs derived from these countries are not eligible, nor these additional countries will not be considered for verifying the eligibility criterion of a minimum of 5 partners from 4 different countries. Countries which will be considered for verifying this criterion will only be the ones covered by point 6.1 (a),(b). 3

4 F.3 We are interested in your call for proposal and are looking for potential partners. Will you put in place a system for partners search? If you are looking for partners, you can use the Cordis database. Although the user community on CORDIS is mainly focussed on research, there are no specific restrictions on who can use the CORDIS Partners service to create a profile, find partners, collaborate in groups and build projects. One of the features of the research of Partners on Cordis is the option to create partnership requests specifically linked to calls for proposals (all calls and their related partner searches are listed here: For people who already have a Partner profile in Cordis database, they can select a specific COSME call when they create a partnership request: Each partnership request will then show up as being associated to the call to attract others interested in the same call. In the case you don t have a profile you can create one here: Should you encounter any difficulties with the Cordis database, please contact the Cordis helpdesk: You may also contact your nearest Enterprise Europe Network member who could assist you in finding potential Partners. The list of Enterprise Europe Network members is available at F.4. According to the European definition of SMEs, can associations or cooperatives be considered as SMEs? To be able to participate in this Call should the SME have a minimum turnover, number of employees or number of year of activities? SMEs are defined in Commission recommendation of 6 May 2003: According to this recommendation An enterprise is any entity engaged in an economic activity, irrespective of its legal form. Thus, the self-employed, family firms, partnerships and associations regularly engaged in an economic activity may be considered as enterprises. It is the economic activity that is the determining factor, not the legal form. For further details on turnover or number of employees please read the recommendation. F.5. Can you provide an example of a letter of support delivered by a public authority? For data protection reasons, we cannot provide you with any example of letter of support to provide you. Such examples can easily be found on the internet. In general, this support letter should make reference to the project idea and the applicants. The entity drafting it should justify briefly why they support the idea. F.6. Does a chamber of commerce or a trade union qualify as national or regional or local public governmental authority ( )? (point 6.3 of the call ) 4

5 As mentioned in the section of the call for proposals 6.3(2)b) at least one of the applicant s must be either a national or regional or local public governmental authority. In the footnote 20 it is further specified that: For the purpose of this call, public governmental authorities at national, regional and local level are: ministries, regions, provinces, departments, municipalities, city councils and communes. Thus, to be eligible under this category of partners, an applicant should be one of the mentioned above public governmental authorities. A body/organisation acting on behalf (or with delegated powers) of a national, regional or local public governmental authority will not be sufficient to fulfil this criterion. Thus a chamber of commerce or a trade union cannot qualify under this category of partners. F.7. is it possible to participate as an organisation/ academic person in more than one proposal for this call? Yes, it is possible to participate as a partner in more than one project under this call. However you can only apply for one project as a lead organisation. However, bear in mind that applicant organisations have to be legal entities. F.8. Is it possible to give me some indications/information regarding the program "Diversifying the EU Tourism offer and products-sustainable Transnational Tourism Products" and the possibilities of accessing European financial founds for my project. My business idea is to start a activity of agro-tourism in XXX with modern accommodation facilities [ ] Please note that the Executive Agency services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Please also note that the present call s objectives are to promote transnational products, and gather a minimum of five different partners in four different countries. For business support you might also get in touch with Enterprise Europe Network : (list of national contact points). F.9. In the text of the call you mention at least one of the applicants must be either a national or regional or local public governmental authority or a network or association of regional or local public governmental authorities. Could you tell me if the Institute of XXXX a department of the XXXX archaeological Academy of Sciences (a state budget national research centre) would be eligible to apply? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. We would like to clarify that as mentioned in the section of the call for proposals 6.3(2)b) for the purpose of this call, by a national or regional or local public governmental authority we mean namely: a national Ministry, region, province, department, municipality, city council, commune. Thus, to be eligible under this category of partners, an applicant should be one of the mentioned above public governmental authorities. 5

6 A body/organisation acting on behalf (or with delegated powers) of a national, regional or local public governmental authority will not be sufficient to fulfil this criterion. F.10. We are a research SME and we are interested in joining a partnership that will submit a proposal under this call. Our questions are as follows: - If the partnership already includes two SMEs active in the tourism sector, would we also be eligible partners, as a research center? - Can subcontractors already be identified at proposal stage? According to the text of the call the consortium should gather a minimum of five partners [ ]at least two partners in the project must be SMEs there is no restriction for your organization to be an eligible partner. Yes, you can already identify subcontractors at proposal stage. F.11. Can the product cover both sport and wellness activities? Could the tourism product of the proposal be related to both maritime and mountain tourism? We clarify that it is acceptable that the project proposal combines both sport and wellness activities and covers more than one identified in the call text types of tourism. F.12. Can a single Municipality participate under listing 1b, (a network/association of regional or local governmental authorities) of TECHNICAL ANNEX 1 (page 5), or only networks/associations are accepted? Indeed, a single municipality can participate under the listing 1b as stated on page 5: a public national or regional or local governmental authority OR a network/association of regional or local governmental authorities F.13. We can t submit a project without having transnational partners? Is the transnational partnership is mandatory? i.e. a project must have at least 5 partners from at least 4 different countries? Indeed, trans-nationality is mandatory for this call. Please refer to 6.3 of the text of the call. F.14. We are a group of local and interprovincial public administrations, associations and SMEs, in XXX. We are working together developing a tourism product, that aims to XXX. We would like to focus on the interconnection between high-density urban areas and their historical rural contests. Could this kind of approach be eligible to the call? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. It is up to the applicant to ensure that its project proposal is in line with the objectives and fulfils all requirements defined in the call text. 6

7 F.15. I would like to know if a project of enterprise tourism (organizing company visit for example) could come within the scope of the following call: COS-WP ? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. Please refer to point Eligible activities of the Call. It is up to the applicant to ensure that its project proposal is in line with the objectives and fulfils all requirements defined in the call text. F.16 The Call WP specifies that "projects should be related to one of the following types of tourism: coastal or maritime or mountain or rural tourism. We kindly ask you: what do you mean exactly with "mountain tourism"? Could this category include even hilly itineraries ( mt a.s.l.)? For the purpose of this call for proposals, the Commission /EASME services are flexible about the "mountain tourism" definition and we clarify that tourism related to hilly itineraries is acceptable. F.17. Could you please let me know if the society XXX which is managing the airport of XXXX (the majority of the XXX is public) is an eligible entity? Please refer to 6.2 and 6.3 of the call. Small and Medium Size enterprises (SMEs) acting in the tourism sector are among the target organizations which could be partners in the project consortium. Please refer to sections 6.2 and 6.3 of the call text. The onus will be on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call. Please provide any useful supporting document and proof of the fulfillment of the above-mentioned compulsory requirements and clearly indicate partners fulfilling them, in order to allow the evaluation committee to accomplish its assessment. At this stage of and without any supporting documents it is not possible to confirm the eligibility of your entity. F.18. Is a private owned company considered to be a Contracting authority as declared in Grant agreement: Beneficiaries that are contracting authorities within the meaning of Directive 2014/24/EU or contracting entities within the meaning of Directive 2014/25/EU must comply with the applicable national law on public procurement. Please refer to the definition of contracting authority as set in Directive 2014/25/EU. F.19. Is a formal agreement of all the members of the consortium required to submit the proposal on their behalf? No. To submit a proposal you need to fill the forms and the documents that will be published in the submission system portal. 7

8 F.20. What are the eligible costs and field of activity eligible? Is creation of a hotel considered as an eligible activity? Please read point 6.4 of the call. F.21. Can the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia participate in this call? Can they participate as coordinator? Entities from 3 rd countries likely to participate to the programme are considered eligible pending the enter into force of the participation agreement. In the case the participation agreement enters into force, an organization from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia could participate as a coordinator or as an applicant. For further information on eligible countries please read: tive Section 6.2 of the call says that countries participating in COSME under art. 6 of the COSME regulation are eligible. However, should an organisation of Former Republic of Macedonia, or any non-eu country likely to participate in COSME, be part of a consortium, and if the proposal is selected, the contract to the Coordinator will only be sent when the non EU country has formally signed the agreement to be part of COSME. Updates on participation of third countries to COSME can be found on the page However, we draw your attention that as mentioned under the point 6.1 of the call text page 7, 8 : In addition, participation of partners from other countries (than the ones covered by the above points (a) and (b) is allowed if relevant for the project. But any costs derived from these countries are not eligible, nor these additional countries will not be considered for verifying the eligibility criterion of a minimum of 5 partners from 4 different countries. Countries which will be considered for verifying this criterion will only be the ones covered by point 6.1 (a),(b). F.22. Is Ukraine allowed participating in this call? Entities from 3 rd countries likely to participate to the programme are considered eligible pending the enter into force the participation agreement. For further information on eligible countries please read: tive Section 6.2 of the call says that countries participating in COSME under art. 6 of the COSME regulation are eligible. However, should an organisation of Ukraine, or any non-eu country likely to participate in COSME, be part of a consortium, and if the proposal is selected, the contract to the Coordinator will only be sent when the non EU country has formally signed the agreement to be part of COSME. 8

9 Updates on participation of third countries to COSME can be found on the page More information can also be found by contacting the relevant national authorities. However, we draw your attention that as mentioned under the point 6.1 of the call text page 7, 8 : In addition, participation of partners from other countries (than the ones covered by the above points (a) and (b) is allowed if relevant for the project. But any costs derived from these countries are not eligible, nor these additional countries will not be considered for verifying the eligibility criterion of a minimum of 5 partners from 4 different countries. Countries which will be considered for verifying this criterion will only be the ones covered by point 6.1 (a),(b). F.23. I would like to know if, in addition to the declaration of honour it is necessary to attach other documents required in previous call such as Letter of Intent, co-financing statement form In a first time, it is only necessary to attach the documents that are requested within the submission system tool. Further documentation can be asked later on. F.24. Could you please let me know more details what exactly we need to send and what we can expect from UE? Please read the text of the call: F.25. Can a sport activity be related to mountain valleys? Yes. In section of the call 'mountain' does not exclude valleys. Thus, activities related to this environment can indeed be supported. F26. Can Turkey be considered as an eligible country for this call? Entities from 3 rd countries likely to participate to the programme are considered eligible pending the enter into force of the participation agreement. Updates on participation of third countries to COSME can be found on the page More information can also be found by contacting the relevant national authorities. However, we draw your attention that as mentioned under the point 6.1 of the call text page 7: In addition, participation of partners from other countries (than the ones covered by the above points (a) and (b) is allowed if relevant for the project. But any costs derived from these countries are not eligible, nor these additional countries will not be considered for verifying the eligibility criterion of a minimum of 5 partners from 4 different countries. Countries which will be considered for verifying this criterion will only be the ones covered by point 6.1 (a),(b). 9

10 F.27. The project we would like to present will contribute to establish an award in tourist destinations based on the our XXX standard (an award for tourism enterprises worldwide [ ] [which] offer truly sustainable tourism products). Are awards like ours included in your call? The call for proposal s eligible activities are defined in point Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. F.28. We intend to submit a proposal in this current call, (COS-TSUST ), and we would like to invite organizations from Azerbaijan and USA to participate in our project. Are these two countries eligible partners? if not, could these organizations of the above mentioned countries become affiliated partners, (as described at pages 7-8, and note 17, see below) in our project. To be eligible, applicants for this call should either be EU member states, or states participating in the COSME programme. The list of COSME participating countries can be found here: Currently Azerbaijan is not candidate to the COSME programme. Concerning the United States, there is no legal basis for its participation in the COSME programme. Nevertheless, COSME s legal basis allows entities from other countries to participate in COSME projects on a self-financing basis. In other terms, you can participate in this call provided that there are already 5 other partners from 4 different eligible countries but any costs derived from these countries are not eligible. (see point 6.1) F.29. What is the difference between the consortium coordinator and consortium partners? We are thinking about a partnership with an some partners, if there is a mono-beneficiary Grant, shouldn t we attach to the application form a Declaration of Honour? Please check the definition in the guide for applicants (point II.2) In a first time the documents that you need to attach to your application are described on the webpage: Other documents will be requested at a later stage of the procedure. This call aims at attributing multi-beneficiaries grants (at least 5 partners involved) not monobeneficiary grants. F.30. Is it implicit in the reported statement that the call intends to prioritize support to existing routes or other initiatives that already received EU, national or other funding rather than supporting new ideas/initiatives/routes? We clarify that the call intends to support both already existing and new initiatives both will have equal chances for support - depending on the quality of the proposals which will be assessed on the basis of the award criteria ( please refer to the page 14,15 of the call text). The mentioned statement was meant to introduce context and background and to give an example of type of initiatives receiving support under this type of calls. 10

11 F.31. Is the Commission proposing to reward projects that have already been implemented, at least for a pilot phase, like existing tourism/cultural routes and/or follow up actions to enhance the sustainability, impact or visibility of such projects? Both kinds of initiative already implemented/ developed to some extent through a previous project or new ones are eligible to apply to this call. The project should aim at developing concrete tourist offer /packages and its promotion. Please refer to point 6.4 of the call text "Eligible activities"(page 10, 11). F.32. In page 4 the call text states: The project proposal should be accompanied by a short but robust action plan including the description of the following aspects: a) the present assets /situation b) what is needed to be changed Points A and B seem to make no reference to the general context described in the call or the background of sustainable tourism in specific context that may be addressed by any proposal. Particularly for B, the feeling is that the point asks to develop on the outputs and impacts achieved by a previous project. Please confirm whether this understanding is correct? To receive the grant, the applicant must justify that the money it requests is needed/justified. The applicant in the short action plan should demonstrate the need of the grant requested and the effectiveness of the expected results. The applicant in the short action plan is requested to demonstrate that its particular project deserves the EU investment (show the intervention logic) because it will make a difference to the current state ( or will solve X problem ). (E.g. this can also concern new initiatives - where there is a demand or potential for an X type of tourism product/ packages /offers in X regions but e.g. the current offer is not sufficient ). F.33. It seems that the Commission proposes to support actions aiming at improving sustainability aspects of projects that, at least to a certain extent, have been already implemented. Is the sustainability aspect referred to in the call generally related to the tourism industry context (environmental, social, economic sustainability) or is it rather implying a reference to aspects of implemented projects that could improve heading to more sustainable practices? The project should "promote sustainable tourism" as mentioned under the point c) page 5. This paragraph is referring to sustainable tourism as respectful of the economic, socio-cultural and environmental principles. The project should clearly identify the sustainability aspect which it aims to improve as it should be more specific that only claiming that it will contribute to promote sustainable tourism in general. The examples of the sustainability aspects are mentioned on the page 5 to help applicants to be more precise in their project proposals. Moreover the point d) "the project should be technically and financially sustainable" refers to the sustainability in terms of continuity of the action after the end of the co-financing period. F.34. It seems that proposals must focus only on one of the following types of tourism: coastal or maritime or mountain or rural tourism. Please confirm if this interpretation is correct. Secondly, could you please describe what the Commission understands for each one of these typologies? Please refer to question F.11. Taking into account that different definitions are used, the Commission and EASME services are flexible towards this aspect as long as the applicant justifies the relevance of the proposal with the requirements set up in the call text and give the reference to the definition used ( national, regional, international ). 11

12 For the purpose of this call, the following example of general definitions could be helpful for applicants: Maritime tourism covers tourism that is largely water-based rather than land-based (e.g. boating, yachting, cruising, nautical sports), but also includes the operation of landside facilities, manufacturing of equipment, and services necessary for this segment of tourism. Coastal tourism covers beach-based recreation and tourism (e.g. swimming, surfing, sun bathing), and non-beach related land-based tourism in the coastal area (all other tourism and recreation activities that take place in the coastal area for which the proximity of the sea is a condition), as well as the supplies and manufacturing industries associated to these activities. Mountain tourism covers tourism taking place in the mountain and hilly areas. The most common elements of mountain-based tourism include nature walks, hiking, land-based adventure activities (such as e.g : activities include cycling, mountain biking), freshwaterbased recreational activities (such as e. g: river tours, canoeing, sailing, kayaking, rafting), snow-dependent recreation activities (such as: cross country, skiing, snowboarding, snowshoe walking) etc. Rural tourism covers tourism taking place in rural areas or settlements, that could be complemented by additional services/facilities relying on the local social, cultural and natural resources. In the broader sense, rural tourism does not only comprise farm tourism or agritourism, but also activities regarding vacations in the midst of nature, trips to rural areas, as well residential tourism, in which services include also social events, festivities, outdoor recreation, production and sale of manufactured products and agricultural products, etc. F.35. We have hotel in XXX (XXX-Portugal) and would like to promote tourism for surf and local activities. How can this call help us fund the reorganization of the procedures and infrastructures, as well as human capital, so we can promote the tourism to this region? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. Please read the eligibility criteria of the call. F.36. We would like to know if healthy food, spiritual techniques, different types of yoga can be considered as wellness? Taking into account that different definitions are used, the Commission and EASME services are flexible towards this aspect as long as the applicant justifies the relevance of the proposal with the requirements set up in the call text and give the reference to the definition used ( e.g. national, regional, international ). For the purpose of this call, the following example of general definitions could be helpful for applicants: Wellness tourism is travel for the purpose of promoting health and well-being through physical, psychological, or spiritual activities. Wellness tourists are proactive in seeking to improve or maintain health and quality of life. Wellness can be defined as the condition of good physical and mental health, especially when maintained by proper diet, exercise, and habits. 12

13 Therefore also practice of yoga can be considered as wellness. F.37. In developing our tourism product can we make combinations of activities regarding wellness and sports? What about combinations between mountain and rural tourism? Taking into account that different definitions are used, the Commission and EASME services are flexible towards this aspect as long as the applicant justifies the relevance of the proposal with the requirements set up in the call text and give the reference to the definition used ( national, regional, international ). F.38. We are trying to set up a project but it does not match the objectives of the call support projects promoting transnational tourism routes/itineraries/trails. Can we still apply? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. Nevertheless, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that the text of the call also states that these routes/ itineraries/ trails are either physical or virtual. F.39. Can the following costs be considered as eligible: Promotion, Print, Making new website, Informing the public Please refer to point 6.4 of the text of the call 'Eligible activities'. F40. Do affiliated need to have their own PIC number?do they need to justify their legal status? Yes, affiliated need to have a PIC number and should be able to justify their legal status. F.41. Our parent company is a micro-multinational non-profit, based in the USA. This appears to disqualify us for your grant. We request a confirmation that this makes us ineligible for the grant, in what capacity might we be able to participate on a self-financing basis? Please check the geographical eligibility rules (point 6.1). Your company is indeed no eligible for financing under this call, however we draw your attention that as mentioned under the point 6.1 of the call text page 7, 8 : In addition, participation of partners from other countries (than the ones covered by the above points (a) and (b) is allowed if relevant for the project. But any costs derived from these countries are not eligible, nor these additional countries will not be considered for verifying the eligibility criterion of a minimum of 5 partners from 4 different countries. Countries which will be considered for verifying this criterion will only be the ones covered by point 6.1 (a),(b). So yes, you could participate on as self-financing basis. F.42.We are a Portuguese NGO, we are looking for partners, how can we proceed? Please refer to question F.3. F.43. Could a registered tour operator with VAT number with less than 9 employees be considered a SME? Yes, please refer to the definition of SME: 13

14 F.44. Are Norwegian legal entities eligible to participate and receive co-funding in COSME s call for proposals? The Norwegian authorities wish to participate in the COSME programme in 2015 but not in Therefore Norwegian legal entities are not eligible for this call. Please see: tive F.45. Are projects related to marine sport fishing tourism considered as eligible? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. Please also refer to question F.34. We would like to draw your attention on the fact that the eligible projects should have a sustainable dimension. F.46. We are a convention bureau located in Ankara, Turkey. Is our Bureau an eligible candidate? Can we choose other Convention and Visitors Bureau in Europe as partners? Please note that to be able to participate to this call, the national authorities of Turkey should first sign the COSME programm agreement. See: tive Then, the project submitted should gather 5 legal entities see point 6.3 of the call text F.47. Are there conditions (other that those described the official EU definition-footnote 19 on page 9) for the acceptance of the SMEs? For example, having had been established for a minimum of two years, etc? No, there are no other conditions than the one described under the point 6.3 of the call. F.48. Can you please provide us with the information whether Albanian legal entity (SME or public institution) will be eligible for the upcoming call for proposals COS-WP ? The participation of Albania to the COSME programme depends on the signature of the participation agreement by its national authorities. 14

15 See: tive F.49. I'd like to have more information with reference to our project, consisting in an informatics platform in line with the requirements of the above mentioned Call: In particular: 1- does the platform created can legally become an asset of a New company that will owns and will manage the platform itself? In this case, are there specific terms for the creation of this New entity? 2- if the question 1 is Yes, does the owners of the New company MUST be the applicants to the Call, or they can be other people? (In fact, applicants may desire to make the investment in order to have longterm benefits from it, without owning the platform itself (ex. free advertising for 5-10 years, privilege in their countries etc). 3- In case is allowed to assign the ownership of the platform to a Newco, are there some limits in the location of the Newco, or it can be allover the world, in relation to the New company needs? 4- finally, in case the question 1 is Yes, and in order to give the possibility to the Newco to benefits of big amounts of money for fighting new competitors coming from China or India, can the Newco during the next years receive additional funding from investment funds (ex. funds located in Silicon Valley)? Sorry, our call is not about IT platforms. Please read the text of the call: F.50. I suppose that if the applicant is a national authority in the field of tourism (subordinated to the Government), a letter of support for the project is not needed. Could you please confirm this? We bring at your attention section 6.3. "Eligibility conditions for consortia" point b: b) at least one of the applicants must be either a national or regional or local public governmental authority or a network or association of regional or local public governmental authorities (in this case, at least one member of the association/network has to be a regional or local public governmental authority, namely -region, province, department, municipality, city council, commune-). A body/organisation acting on behalf (or with delegated powers) of a national, regional or local public governmental authority will not be sufficient to fulfil this criterion. The consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed delivered by a public national governmental authority of one of the eligible countries, namely a Ministry at national level (or in case of countries with decentralised competences in tourism a Ministry at regional level) in charge of tourism and/or regional development or any other area which is in relation to the object of the proposal. Hence, if one of the applicants of the consortium is a national public governmental authority (or a regional public governmental authority in those countries where there is regional competence 15

16 in tourism) there is no need to deliver a support letter. In all other cases, including when an applicant has delegated powers or acts on behalf of a governmental authority, such a letter of support is needed and it is compulsory for the eligibility of the consortium. F.51. We would like to have a clarification about the position of Italy: it is necessary to present a letter of support delivered by a Ministry at a national level or at a regional level if the competences in tourism are decentralised. In Italy tourism is competence of Regions with reference to the legge costituzionale n. 3/2001 (art 117 comma 4) and for this reason we would like to know if for Italy it is enough to ask the endorsement letter at the regional level or not. Please note that the Executive Agency services cannot at this stage, for reasons of equal treatment, assess the eligibility of a proposal. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. As stated at page 10 of the call text, "The onus will be on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call. Please provide any useful supporting document and proof of the fulfilment of the above-mentioned compulsory requirements and clearly indicate in the submitted proposal, the name of the applicants fulfilling them, in order to allow the evaluation committee to accomplish its assessment In your specific case, we invite you to duly justify (including an extract of the legge costituzionale n. 3/2001 and any other useful document) the choice of introducing a letter of support of a Regional authority. F.52. Is there a template fort he compulsory Declaration of honor? No, there is no template fort his document. F.53. Is Malta a participating country in COSME? İ sthere a national contact point in Malta? Yes, Malta is a participating country in the COSME programme. Being a member of the European Union, organisations from Malta can participate in this call. There is no national contact point fort his call F.54. Is it possible to present a proposal which has a combination of all of coastal, maritime, mountain and rural tourism? Is it possible to have a proposal which covers both topics sport and wellness? Yes. Please read question F.37. F.55. In your call you mentioned that the activities should involve: sport or wellness activities in relation to one of the following types of tourism: coastal or maritime or mountain or rural tourism. For our better understanding should we develop the project with one type of tourism ONLY i.e.maritime or it is allowed to integrate/combine 2 or more types of tourism (i.e.water sports and mountain activities). Please read question F.37. Please note that the Executive Agency services cannot at this stage, for reasons of equal treatment, assess the eligibility of a proposal. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. 16

17 F.56. Are SMEs, with the legal registration for several activities in tourism, eligible to be the partners in the COS-WP call? Yes, please read section 6 'Eligibility criteria' F.57. We are a group of local and interprovincial public administrations, associations and SMEs, in XXX (Italy). We are working together developing a tourism product, that aims to link the metropolitan area of the city of XXX to its rural areas with hiking and cycling trails[ ] We would like to link this kind of metropolitan-rural tourism with other similar experiences in various European countries. Focusing on the interconnection between high-density urban areas and their historical rural contests. Could this kind of approach be eligible to the call? Eligible activities are described in section 6.4 of the call. Please note that the Executive Agency services cannot at this stage, for reasons of equal treatment, assess the eligibility of a proposal. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. F.58. In the call for proposal (page 11) it is told that development of infrastructure is a noneligible activity, but in page 18, it is told that depreciation of equipment or other assets (new or second-hand) is an eligible direct cost. Could you tell me an example of what kind of equipment is considered? Infrastructure and equipment are not the same. Depreciation of equipment is taken into account as eligible cost but indeed the development of infrastructure is not (ie: depreciation of the use of a printer is calculated in the eligible costs). F.59. Is it possible to contract new personnel for the management of the project? It is possible indeed provided that the personnel in question have the capacity to carry out the work. F.60. Could an organisation be partner of 2 proposals for the same call? The question concerns this call but also the COSME programme. Please read question F.7. Yes, it is possible to participate as a partner in more than one project under this call. However you can only apply for one project as a lead organisation. It is also possible for the same organisation to participate in various calls under the COSME programme. F.61. I would like to know if a Regional development agency can qualify as a 'regional public governmental authority?' As mentioned in the section of the call for proposals 6.3(2)b) at least one of the applicant s must be either a national or regional or local public governmental authority. In the footnote 20 it is further specified that: For the purpose of this call, public governmental authorities at national, regional and local level are: ministries, regions, provinces, departments, municipalities, city councils and communes. Thus, to be eligible under this category of partners, an applicant should be one of the mentioned above public governmental authorities. A body/organisation acting on behalf (or with delegated powers) of a national, regional or local public governmental authority will not be sufficient to fulfil this criterion. F.62. Our company is a SME working in the field of NTIC, we would like to take part in your project. We have developed an product with a natural park a product for tourism industry. Can we be considered as partner and not subcontractor? Our product is already used by national parks. 17

18 Please note that the Executive Agency services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. We remind you that the call states at page 10 in section 6.3 "Eligibility conditions for consortia" that: "The onus will be on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call. Please provide any useful supporting document and proof of the fulfilment of the above-mentioned compulsory requirements and clearly indicate in the submitted proposal, the name of the applicants fulfilling them, in order to allow the evaluation committee to accomplish its assessment" Hence, it is up to the applicant to duly justify (with as much evidence as possible) why they believe they fit in the compulsory eligibility criteria. Your justification will be assessed by the Evaluation Committee. F.63. Are the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia eligible for this call? So far (03/09/2014) situation of the three above-mentioned countries didn t change. Their participation to the COSME programme depends on the signature of the participation agreement by its national authorities Nevertheless, COSME s legal basis allows entities from other countries to participate in COSME projects on a self-financing basis. In other terms, you can participate in this call provided that there are already 5 other partners from 4 different eligible countries but any costs derived from these countries are not eligible. (see point 6.1) F.64. How many proposals do you expect before 7/10/2014? Can we hand-in a concept proposal that we can discuss? Do you have a telephone number that we can call for further questions? Is there budget available for a pre-partner meeting? We are not in a position to give you any indication about the number of proposal expected. The Executive Agency services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. All you question you might have should be sent to our functional mailbox: EASME-COSME- SUSTAINABLE-TOURISM-CALL-2014@ec.europa.eu The grants do not cover pre-partner meeting or any cost occurred before the start of the project. F.65. If we have one or two networks of enterprises led each by a DMC- Destination Management Company and five or more SME in the tourist sector, is each network eligible to apply as project coordinator or partner of the project? If yes, the number of SME participating as partner is either the sum of the SMEs joining each network (e.g. national network: 1 DMC plus 5 SMEs; foreign network: 1 DMC plus 6 SMEs= 13 SMEs totally as partners) or the network itself is considered as one private body? An applicant is a legal entity. In section 6.2 "Eligible applicants entities" the call states that: "Applicant18 organisations must be legal entities. " 18

19 And section 6.3 "Eligibility conditions for consortia" it states: "The consortium must gather a minimum of five partners - legal entities - covering at least four countries as listed under point 6.1. "Geographical eligibility"." If a network of enterprises is constituted as a single legal entity then it can be considered as an applicant (or partner of the consortium). But in this case it is 1 partner. (1 partner = 1 legal entity). Also note that footnote 18 states that: "By applicants are to be understood as any potential co-signatory of the future grant agreement subject to this call, and as proposed by the applicant coordinator." Hence, all applicants are the co-signatory of the grant agreement. F.66. As written in the "call for proposal" (pg.10) the international organization is eligible, thus UNESCO could be involved in our consortium. Could you kindly give more detail or confirm its eligibility? Please note that the Executive Agency services cannot at this stage, for reasons of equal treatment and without any supporting document assess the eligibility of a proposals or potential partners. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. As stated at page 10 of the call text: " The onus will be on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call. Please provide any useful supporting document and proof of the fulfilment of the above-mentioned compulsory requirements and clearly indicate in the submitted proposal, the name of the applicants fulfilling them, in order to allow the evaluation committee to accomplish its assessment In your specific case, it will be the onus of the applicant to justify that the proposed partner corresponds to the category of: "International, European and national organisations/associations active in the field of tourism and related fields". F.67 Can Turkey be considered as an eligible country for this call? Entities from 3rd countries likely to participate to the programme are considered eligible pending the enter into force of the participation agreement. Updates on participation of third countries to COSME can be found on the page However, we draw your attention that as mentioned under the point 6.1 of the call text page 7: In addition, participation of partners from other countries (than the ones covered by the above points (a) and (b) is allowed if relevant for the project. But any costs derived from these countries are not eligible, nor these additional countries will not be considered for verifying the eligibility criterion of a minimum of 5 partners from 4 different countries. Countries which will be considered for verifying this criterion will only be the ones covered by point 6.1 (a),(b). F.68. Is signalization and maintenance of paths/trails considered as part of supporting and strengthening sustainable tourism products (i.e. sport events such as run, marathon and guided itineraries) is an eligible type of activity or it has to be considered as ''development/improvement of infrastructure''? As mentioned on the page 11 of the call text "development/improvement of infrastructure" is a not eligible activity for this call. Maintenance of paths/trails is thus considered as not eligible. 19

20 However signalisation/ signposting could be considered as eligible, if well justified by applicant, especially with the objective of uniform signposting of a transnational tourism product (e.g. trail, itinerary, route...) and/or of proving information to tourists. F.69. Regarding the letter of support of a National governmental authority, in order to comply with this eligibility criteria, is it sufficient to submit a letter of a National Tourist Office or other public bodies in charge of tourism that are not the Ministry itself? As stated on the page 9 of the call for proposals: "The consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed delivered by a public national governmental authority of one of the eligible countries, namely a Ministry at national level (or in case of countries with decentralised competences in tourism a Ministry at regional level) in charge of tourism and/or regional development or any other area which is in relation to the object of the proposal." Thus, the letter of support has to come from a Ministry at national level or in case of countries with decentralised competences in tourism a Ministry at regional level. F.70 Can you tell me if Ukraine is eligible or non-eligible for this call? Entities from 3 rd countries likely to participate to the programme are considered eligible pending the enter into force the participation agreement. Updates on participation of third countries to COSME can be found on the page Section 6.2 of the call says that countries participating in COSME under art. 6 of the COSME regulation are eligible. However, should an organisation of Ukraine, or any non-eu country likely to participate in COSME, be part of a consortium, and if the proposal is selected, the contract to the Coordinator will only be sent when the non EU country has formally signed the agreement to be part of COSME. More information can also be found by contacting the relevant national authorities. However, we draw your attention that as mentioned under the point 6.1 of the call text page 7, 8 : In addition, participation of partners from other countries (than the ones covered by the above points (a) and (b) is allowed if relevant for the project. But any costs derived from these countries are not eligible, nor these additional countries will not be considered for verifying the eligibility criterion of a minimum of 5 partners from 4 different countries. Countries which will be considered for verifying this criterion will only be the ones covered by point 6.1 (a),(b). F.71. In reference to the eligibility conditions of SMEs, paragraph 6.3 of the call, I would like to know if the XXX's statute is compatible with the eligible criteria foreseen in the call, and then understand if XXX company if eligible as SME. In order to have your feedback I send you attached a copy of the XXX statute. Please note that the Executive Agency services cannot at this stage, for reasons of equal treatment and without any supporting document assess the eligibility of a proposal or potential partners. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. As stated at page 10 of the call text: " The onus will be on the applicants to 20

21 demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call. Please provide any useful supporting document and proof of the fulfilment of the above-mentioned compulsory requirements and clearly indicate in the submitted proposal, the name of the applicants fulfilling them, in order to allow the evaluation committee to accomplish its assessment F.72. Is an NGO from Republic of Moldova is eligible to be partner on a project for the Call for proposals? Entities from 3rd countries likely to participate to the programme are considered eligible pending the enter into force of the participation agreement. Updates on participation of third countries to COSME can be found on the page However, we draw your attention that as mentioned under the point 6.1 of the call text page 7: In addition, participation of partners from other countries (than the ones covered by the above points (a) and (b) is allowed if relevant for the project. But any costs derived from these countries are not eligible, nor these additional countries will not be considered for verifying the eligibility criterion of a minimum of 5 partners from 4 different countries. Countries which will be considered for verifying this criterion will only be the ones covered by point 6.1 (a),(b). F.73. We are planning to submit a proposal and we have Serbian company in our consortium. Since there is no update on Serbian status, last info that we have is that Serbia will participate in COSME in 2015, we would like to know if Serbia is eligible? Updates on participation of third countries to COSME can be found on the page However, we draw your attention that as mentioned under the point 6.1 of the call text page 7: In addition, participation of partners from other countries (than the ones covered by the above points (a) and (b) is allowed if relevant for the project. But any costs derived from these countries are not eligible, nor these additional countries will not be considered for verifying the eligibility criterion of a minimum of 5 partners from 4 different countries. Countries which will be considered for verifying this criterion will only be the ones covered by point 6.1 (a),(b). F.74. Let`s imagine that my organisation participates as a partner (not coordinator) in a consortium that is funded under the Sustainable Tourism Call. Is it possible for some of the people who work on this project to be hired by the organisation with civil contract, NOT labor/employment contract? Costs for persons working under a labor/employment contract or equivalent contracts are considered under the staff costs. Costs for persons working under other civil contracts, meaning by subcontracting, to perform part of the work to be carried out under the project are considered as costs for subcontracting. The subcontracting needs to be in accordance with point 11.1.e of the Call. 21

22 In these cases, the beneficiary's control over the work to be performed by the subcontractor is determined by the nature of the subcontractor e.g the subcontractor does not usually work on the premises of the beneficiary and the terms of the work are not so closely carried out under the direct instruction of the beneficiary. F.75. On page 18 in the Call for proposals are stated the Eligible direct costs. It is said: "the costs of personnel working under an employment contract with the applicant or equivalent appointing act and assigned to the action...". What do you mean by an equivalent appointing act? Could this be a contract according to which the appointed person does not have specific place of work and fixed working hours which is a legal work option according to the legislation of my country. I don`t know the term of this type of contract, probably civil contract? Any contract producing the same obligations and responsibilities as employment contract under the national law are considered equivalent to employment contracts. In this case costs can be considered as personnel costs regardless of whether the person is selfemployed or employed by a third party if the following cumulative criteria are fulfilled: the beneficiary has a contract to engage a physical person to work for it and some of that work involves tasks to be carried out under the EC project; the physical person must work under the direct instructions of the beneficiary, ie the work is decided, designed and directly supervised by the beneficiary; the physical person must work in the premises of the beneficiary (except in the case of specific teleworking agreed between both parties); the result of the work belongs to the beneficiary; the costs of employing the person are not significantly different from the personnel costs of employees of the same category working under labour law contract for the beneficiary - travel and subsistence costs related to such persons' participation in project meetings or other travel relating to the project would have to paid directly to the beneficiary in order to be eligible. F.76. Concerning the engagement of SME, I saw in the FAQs that also self-employed can enter as SME. I checked the recommendations but I am not sure what kind of turnover is minimum for a self-employed? As mentioned in the Call for proposal (point 6.2) applicant organisations must be legal entities. They can be fully or partly public or private bodies; private bodies must be properly constituted and registered under national law. Regarding your question about the turnover, be reminded that for the purpose of this call, the European definition of an SME is applied, mentioning only a maximum turnover of EUR 50 M for SMEs and of EUR 2M for micro enterprises. See Commission Recommendation C (2003) 1422 of 6 May 2003 (Official Journal of the European Union OJ L 124/36 of ). As mentioned in the Call for proposal (point Art. 8.1) it is required that "Applicants must have stable and sufficient sources of funding to maintain their 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." 22

23 F.77. According to the recommendation of the Commission the self-employed, family firms, partnerships and associations regularly engaged in an economic activity may be considered as enterprises. You wrote in the FAQ that it is the economic activity that is the determining factor, not the legal form. Can a wellness centre managed by a municipality (régie municipale) be considered as SMEs? As mentioned in the Call for proposal (point 6.2) applicant organisations must be legal entities. They can be fully or partly public or private bodies; private bodies must be properly constituted and registered under national law, regardless their legal form. Regarding your question if you are considered as an SME, be reminded that for the purpose of this call, the European definition of an SME is applied, according to which an enterprise is any entity engaged in an economic activity, irrespective of its legal form. See Commission Recommendation C (2003) 1422 of 6 May 2003 (Official Journal of the European Union OJ L 124/36 of ). F.78. If a charity demonstrates that it functions as an enterprise, can it qualify as a SME? Please read the answer to Question F.77 above. F.79 Are you able to tell me if there is a UK national contact point who can help me with queries I have on this call? It would be good to be able to talk to someone. There is no national focal point for this Call. All questions for clarifications have to be submitted to the functional mailbox of the call in writing and the answer will be published in the FAQ document on the website. F.80 I am writing to you to ask about the eligibility of a consortium. Will you please give us answers on the following? Would a partnership which includes a company active in producing products for wellness tourism on wholesale to other tourist enterprises be eligible for the call? What if this company is also active in promoting the cultural dimension of the local products and by organizing local seminars and guided tours while also selling products to its own customers? Would it be eligible? What if the company is actively involved in key project activities and undertake a leading role for the WP3: PILOT APPLICATION? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. 23

24 Please note that the list of eligible types of SMEs is mentioned in page 9 of the call text. It is up to the applicant to ensure that the proposed partners fulfil requirements defined in the call text, and to justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. F.81 I have opened my draft proposal on the participant portal and inserted the partners for the project. Partners come from Italy, Romania, Portugal and Turkey. As I included my partners in the system, I had the following message: "Consortium eligibility: Call requires at least 5 participant(s) from different EU member states or associated countries, currently you have 3." But, according to the call and to the FAQ, Turkey is an eligible country (call, page 8, footnote 17). 1) Could you please verify if Turkey is considered as an eligible country or not, according to the submission system? 2) Since in the submission system there is no place for uploading the Declaration on Honour and the financial capability, should we consider not to collect such documents from partners? Concerning Turkey, please read the answer to Question F.26 above. Feedback on the other question is provided in Section M of this FAQ, to include Question/Answer M.7 F.82 The applicant from the the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia would like to participate as a Leading Partner. The submission system is indicating: "The selected organization s country is not a member of EU member states or associated countries which may deem your proposal ineligible". So can the applicant be a lead organization in this call? Please read the answer to Question F.21 above. F.83. I'm from Italy. Do I have to contact the actual Ministry of Tourism in Italy, or can I deal with someone from the Lazio Region, for example? Please refer to question F.51 F.84 We are intending to submit a project under the COSME call for proposals and we are a local authority in Cyprus. We are the Leader of the consortium and I would like to ask you if we need to submit a letter of support by the Ministry of Tourism? How should this be and what does it need to say? Is there a fixed template which we can use or even an example? Please refer to question F.5. As regards the letter of support, please refer to Section 6.3 of the Call Specifications, and be guided particularly by the following: "The consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed delivered by a public national governmental authority of one of the eligible countries, namely a Ministry at national level (or in case of countries with decentralised competences in tourism a Ministry at regional level) in charge of tourism and/or regional development or any other area which is in relation to the object of the proposal." F.85 I would like to know if the letter of support (mentioned in the Call for Proposal point 6.3. paragraph b)) should be delivered only at Ministry level or it could be delivered from a Centre Regional Development Agency? When and where should I attach this letter? As regards the letter of support, please refer to Section 6.3 of the Call Specifications, and be guided particularly by the following: 24

25 "The consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed delivered by a public national governmental authority of one of the eligible countries, namely a Ministry at national level (or in case of countries with decentralised competences in tourism a Ministry at regional level) in charge of tourism and/or regional development or any other area which is in relation to the object of the proposal." This support letter can be attached with the Annex 1 'Description of work'. F.86 We have doubts regarding the letter of support that we must attach to the project. Should it be signed by the regional authority with competence in tourism, or by the authority with responsibility for sustainable economic development in these natural areas? Please refer to the call specifications, notably: "The consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed delivered by a public national governmental authority of one of the eligible countries, namely a Ministry at national level (or in case of countries with decentralised competences in tourism a Ministry at regional level) in charge of tourism and/or regional development or any other area which is in relation to the object of the proposal." In your case, if tourism is a decentralised competency in your country, any of the authorities you mention would be appropriate. F.87 We are the project coordinator, and we have a specific question regarding to the call text, which say the following: "The consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed delivered by a public national governmental authority of one of the eligible countries, namely a Ministry at national level (or in case of countries with decentralized competences in tourism a Ministry at regional level) in charge of tourism and/or regional development or any other area which is in relation to the object of the proposal". I ve spoken with some members of the Spanish Tourism Ministry, and nobody know this requirement for the call. They can t sign a letter of support to a private entity. On the other hand, we re located in Tenerife, Canary Island. In terms of tourism field, there exists a shared competency between the National and Regional Government. The letter should support the entire project, rather than a particular private entity. In your case, if tourism is a decentralised competency in your country, a letter from the competent authority at the Regional Government would also be appropriate. F.88 I would like to know if a regional development agency from Slovenia can qualify as a regional public governmental authority (point 6.3.b of the call). Our agency is by legal status a body governed by public law acting on a regional level (NUTS III) as a Regional development agency which was officially acknowledged by the Ministry in charge. Our instiution acts on regional level with the aim of promoting business and economy development in the region. It performs the role of regional coordinator of interests on local as well as national level in this field and also in field of regional development, human resources and environment protection. It is an intermediary between ministry and municipalities. Regions as public governmental authorities in Slovenia namely don't exist. There have been established only so-called 'statistical regions' with regional development agencies representing them. 25

26 Please note that the Executive Agency services cannot at this stage, for reasons of equal treatment and without any supporting document assess the eligibility of a proposal or potential partners. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. As mentioned in the section of the call for proposals 6.3(2)b) at least one of the applicants must be either a national or regional or local public governmental authority. In the footnote 20 it is further specified that: For the purpose of this call, public governmental authorities at national, regional and local level are: ministries, regions, provinces, departments, municipalities, city councils and communes. Thus, to be eligible under this category of partners, an applicant should be one of the mentioned above public governmental authorities. F.89 In part 6.3., it is stated that: The consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed delivered by a public national governmental authority of one of the eligible countries, namely a Ministry at national level (or in case of countries with decentralised competences in tourism a Ministry at regional level) in charge of tourism and/or regional development or any other area which is in relation to the object of the proposal. What are the responsibilities of the public authority, providing the letter of support? To what extend the public authority is involved in the project and what happens if it supports a project that eventually fails? Do you have any formal instructions, concerning the issue? Is it officially stated in your guides or in EU regulations? In general, by the letter of support, the public national governmental authority expresses that it is aware of a project, encourages/supports the project to be implemented e.g. as this type of projects could fit with a national/regional strategy to develop X type of tourism, believes that the project is good enough to be successfully implemented and could make a difference for tourism development in the concerned areas. Concerning the responsibilities, the public national authority is free to define the scope of support it wishes to provide to the project. If the public national governmental authority providing the letter of support is at the same time a partner in the project, we draw your attention to the fact that the relevance of the partners to the project and degree of involvement of the partners are included within the Call criteria (page 14 of the call text, section 9. Award criteria). F.90 Is the letter of support to be issued by an additional governmental authority, or is it possible that the regional administrational project partner is the issuer of the letter of support at the same time? Please be guided by Question F.50 F.91 Is XXX considered as a public governmental authority at national level? The XXX is a public institution, established by the Republic of XX, which performs public forestry service in all forests, irrespective of ownership. The public forestry service is nearly entirely funded from the state budget. At state level it is organized with its central unit in XX, at regional level in 00 regional units, and at local level it has 00 local units and 00 forest districts. Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your 26

27 questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. It is recommended that you read carefully the contents of the Call, particularly Section 6.3 on "Eligibility Conditions for Consortia". The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the Call. It is up to the applicant to ensure that the proposed partners fulfil requirements defined in the call text, and to justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. Other questions/answers in this FAQ (like Questions F.50) might also prove to be helpful. F.92 Is XXX Wine Route an eligible partner? Does this Wine Route satisfy also the eligibility criteria specified in Paragraph 6.3 (eligibility conditions for consortia) point b of Cos-WP (At least one of the applicants must be either a national or regional or local public governmental authority or a network or association of regional or local public governmental authorities in this case, at least one member of the association/network has to be a regional or local public governmental authority, namely -region, province, department, municipality, city council, commune-)?. Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. F.93 Is a partnership which includes a Consulting Company active in promoting Sustainable Tourism and elaborating studies for the development of alternative tourism in regions and municipalities eligible? Considering SMEs, this company is considered to represent a partner from the category other tourism related fields in relevance to the project proposal justified by the applicant as it is mentioned in page 9 of the Call. If this company is delegated to support with its technical expertise all project activities and undertake the implementation of a specific study that is absolutely necessary for the project, would it be eligible? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. The onus will be on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call. Please provide any useful supporting document and proof of the fulfilment of the below mentioned compulsory requirements and clearly indicate in the submitted proposal, the name of the applicants fulfilling them, in order to allow the evaluation committee to accomplish its assessment. * at least two partners in the project consortium must be SMEs Small and Medium Sized enterprises - acting in the tourism sector. For the purpose of the present call, it is considered that SMEs being partners in the consortium have to act in one of the following fields: - tourist accommodation - catering - travel agencies and tour operators - attractions 27

28 - leisure (recreational, cultural and sporting activities) - tourism related transport - other tourism related fields if their relevance for the project proposal is duly justified by the applicant Other kinds of SMEs (e.g. in the fields of media, ICT development and others) may be involved in the project only as subcontractors (see point 11.1.e), not as applicants in the consortium. F.94 Do the proposals have to fulfil every one of the general objectives of the Call or is it sufficient to focus on 2-3? The project proposal has to be in line with all the general objectives of the call. F.95 Does the definition of "transnational tourism routes/itineraries/ trails" imply that the routes/itineraries/trails must be in countries that are adjacent (i.e neighbouring) to each other? By this I mean, does it have to be possible for tourists to complete the route/itinerary/trail without having to fly great distances? For example, if we select destinations/smes in the UK, Italy, Greece and Spain, creating a physical route would be rather difficult, but holidaymakers could travel by plane between them. So am I correct in assuming that a physical trail/itinerary/route has to be in neighbouring countries and a virtual or conceptual trail/itinerary/route (i.e mediterranean mountains) can be in countries that are not neighbouring? The Call text states (page 5) that: "For the purpose of this call, a transnational tourism product means a set of tourism destinations/attractions/services which take the form of a transnational route/itinerary/trail/tourism offer, either physical (based on physical infrastructure) or conceptual (linking places/destinations/attractions) and which all share a common link/feature/topic/theme". Thus, a transnational route/itinerary/trail/tourism offer can cover countries that are not neighbouring. F.96 I need a clarification about the eligible conditions of the consortium's partners, in particular the conditions for SMEs. In reference to the eligibility conditions of SMEs, paragraph 6.3 of the call, I would like to know if the statute of XXX is compatible with the eligible criteria foreseen in the call, and then understand if XXX as a company is eligible as an SME. Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the Call (and in the case of your question, Section 6.3 on "Eligibility Conditions for Consortia"). F.97 Can XXX (an Italian food, culture and territory association) registered with VAT Number be the Project Leader? Because as stated on page 8 in the Call for Proposals document, applicant organisations must be legal entities. Does this mean that it should be registered under nation law, in our case at the Italian Ufficio delle Entrate? 28

29 Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. The onus will be on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call. In this context, applicant organisations should indeed be legal entities (Section 6.2). They can be fully or partly public or private bodies; private bodies must be properly constituted and registered under national law. Please identify the appropriate office at national level by contacting the relevant authorities. Moreover, please note that applicants should act in consortium with partner organisations. Any one of the applicants must act as the consortium coordinator. Several applicants, submitting a joint project proposal should choose within their midst a lead organisation, referred to as the coordinator (Section 6.3). F.98 We are a consortium whose leader is an Italian municipality that meets the requirements of the Call for Proposal (Minimum 5 Partners, at least 4 countries). Could additional Italian partners participate? As per Section 6.3 (please refer to the entire section for full eligibility conditions), the consortium must gather a minimum of five partners - legal entities - covering at least four countries as listed under point 6.1. "Geographical eligibility". Therefore additional eligible partners from the same country could indeed be included, if the above minimum requirement is still met. F.99 The Call talks about 5 partners and 4 EU countries. Does this mean that the project should take place in four different countries? Is it possible to develop a project just in the region of Andalucía in south Spain or should the project be developed in other countries too? Eligible applicants from Andalucía are indeed welcome to apply. As per Section 6.3 (please refer to the entire section for full eligibility conditions), the consortium should however gather a minimum of five partners - legal entities - covering at least four countries as listed under point 6.1. "Geographical eligibility". F.100 Is the Interreg project XXX Trail eligible to participate in this call, with other two partners? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call. F.101 We would like to know if a Chamber of Commerce could be considered as local public governmental authority. As indicated in the Call (footnote 20), public governmental authorities at national, regional and local level are defined as ministries, regions, provinces, departments, municipalities, city councils and communes. Thus, to be eligible under this category of partners, an applicant should be one of the mentioned above public governmental authorities. 29

30 F.102 I have a question regarding the participation of non-sme private companies. We are structuring a consortium of 3 SMEs, one local authority and two bigger companies, one offering tourist tours and other offering interactive tourism outdoor contents (via touristic portal). Is this kind of consortium eligible? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. The onus will be on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call. Within this context, please be guided by the provisions particularly of Section 6.3 concerning 'Eligibility Conditions for Consortia'. It is up to the applicant to ensure that the proposed partners fulfil requirements defined in the call text, and to justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. F.103 Is Montenegro an eligible country, according to Article 6 - Participation of third countries? Section 6.2 of the call states that countries participating in COSME under art. 6 of the COSME regulation are eligible. Montenegro is a country where the International Agreement (IA) has been signed, but not yet entered into force. In order for the Agreement to enter into force, Montenegro has to notify the Commission that its internal legal requirements for its entry into force have been completed. Additional details on third countries' participation in the COSME programme are available through the following link: tive F.104 I have read in the call that acceding, candidate and potential candidates countries are eligible for participation in COSME, if they have undersigned specific agreements with the EC. Which Western Balkan countries did undersign the required Memorandum of Understanding so far? Details on third countries' participation in the COSME programme are available through the following link: tive F.105 We have found a very good Ukrainian partner who will do some work which is necessary in the Ukrainian part of the transnational product we are preparing. What do you advice is better: 1. to incorporate that Ukrainian partner in the partnership structure with zero project budget (no money from grant) or 2. just to mention it in the relevant part of the project documents (work plan, etc.), but not to incorporate that partner officially? In case you will advice to put Ukrainian partner in the partnership structure do they need all documents (PIC number, lists of projects, declarations, etc.) if they will receive no funding from the project budget? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no 30

31 circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. The onus will be on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and to justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. Within this context, please be guided particularly by Question/Answer F.22 Moreover, if your Consortium decides to include the Ukrainian partner in the eventual contract, then the compilation of submission documents (including a PIC number) will also be required for such a partner. F.106 In the call for proposals, it is written that proposal can be submitted in one language of the EU. But in the Guide for applicants, it is clarified that if the proposal submission is not in English, an English translation must be sent for evaluators. Is it compulsory to send the eventual English translation at the same time as the official proposal, ie. October 7th? Is the quality of the translation taken in account for proposal assessment? What would be the modalities for the sending of the English translation in order to ensure an effective receipt of the document? Both the Call and the Guide for Applicants, indicate that the proposal may be submitted in any of the official languages of the European Union. The Guide thereafter specifies that "if the submitted proposal is not in English, a translation of the full proposal would be of assistance to the evaluators. An English translation of the abstract shall be included in Part B of the proposal". This means that a translation into English of the full proposal is not essential although it would facilitate the work of evaluators. It is up to the applicant to decide whether to include a full translation or not. On the other hand, a faithful translation into English of the abstract should indeed be included in Part B of the proposal, as indicated in the Guide for Applicants. F.107 In which language do I have to send the application? In the call for proposals, par. 5 is written "applications must be drafted in one the EU official languages". There are 24 official languages, so do I have to send it in English? Please be guided by the reply to Question F.106 F108 Is it possible to have the reference documents for the call in Italian or French language? If by reference documents you mean the actual Call specifications and the other documents requested online ( please note that these are only available in the English language. F.109 Is an NGO from Romania eligible to develop activities like tourism packages in the Republic of Moldova? Eligible NGO applicants from Romania are indeed welcome to apply. Entities from the Republic of Moldova are moreover considered eligible pending the entry into force of the participation agreement. For further information on eligible countries please read: tive 31

32 Please also be guided by the reply to Question F.72. More information can also be found by contacting the relevant national authorities. F.110 Are the affiliated entities essential? Is it possible to apply just as a consortium of partners? Affiliated entities are not essential. As indicated in Section 6.2 of the Call, legal entities having a legal or capital link with applicants, which is neither limited to the action nor established for the sole purpose of its implementation, may however take part in the action as affiliated entities, and may declare eligible costs as specified in section For that purpose, applicants shall identify such affiliated entities in the application form. Eligibility conditions for consortia are thereafter indicated in Section 6.3 F.111 What is the meaning of "the consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed delivered by a public national governmental authority of one of the eligible countries, namely at Ministry national level (or a Ministry at regional level)? Do I have to contact the Ministry and ask them to submit a letter of support? Please be guided by previous questions, to include F.69, F and F.89 F.112 is it mandatory to involve other countries? Our project involves only Italy and to be precise our country`s region, made up of 20 towns. Yes, it is mandatory. As per Section 6.3 (please refer to the entire section for full eligibility conditions), the consortium must gather a minimum of five partners - legal entities - covering at least four countries as listed under point 6.1. "Geographical eligibility". F.113 Would our product (Network of Wine Cities) meet the call requirements and, therefore, would our proposal be accepted as eligible? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. F.114 Could our partners be national private associations, such as hotel associations, rural houses associations, etc. instead of SMEs? Please be guided by the provisions of Section 6.3, particularly that "at least two partners in the project consortium must be SMEs". For the purpose of the present call, it is considered that SMEs being partners in the consortium have to act in one of the following fields: - tourist accommodation - catering - travel agencies and tour operators - attractions - leisure (recreational, cultural and sporting activities) - tourism related transport 32

33 - other tourism related fields if their relevance for the project proposal is duly justified by the applicant. Other kinds of SMEs (e.g. in the fields of media, ICT development and others) may be involved in the project only as subcontractors (see point 11.1.e), not as applicants in the consortium. As per Footnote 19, SME is defined as a company engaged in economic activities and having less than 250 employees, with a turnover of less than 50 million or a balance sheet total of less than 43 million F.115 What is difference between "full member" and "affiliated entity" and what could be reason of involvement of some organisation as affiliated and not as the full member? Please refer to Questions/Answers F. 40, F.110 and K. 36 for clarifications concerning affiliated entities. Moreover, please be aware that the onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. F.116 We plan to involve the ministry as the proper project partner however without financial contribution/expenses and its subordinated organisation (legally and financially bound with the ministry and established by the ministry) as the affiliated entity which will have project expenses and co-financing. Would that ministry still be considered as accomplishing the requirement of participation of "the national governmental authority."? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. Concerning the responsibilities, the public national authority is free to define the scope of support it wishes to provide to the project. However, we draw your attention to the fact that the relevance of the partners to the project and degree of involvement of the partners are among the Evaluation criteria ( page 14 of the call text, section 9. Award criteria). Moreover, if your Consortium decides to include the Ministry as a partner in the eventual contract, then the compilation of submission documents (including a PIC number) will also be required for such a partner. F.117 Should the organization's activity report also list the existing tourism products of the company? The existing sustainable tourism products should be mentioned in the document "List of Previous Projects" which needs to be compiled as part of the submission. Applicants are requested to describe previous projects and activities related to the field of the call from the last 3 (three) years in this document. 33

34 The organization`s activity report (in Section 8.2) should on the other hand indicate the main activities not necessarily tourism-oriented - undertaken by the different partners. F.118 The project must at least include three activities including the facilitation of public private partnerships. In this context, is the constitution of a non- profit legal entity an eligible activity? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. F.119 Please refer to Part B, Technical Annex I, Sections: 1, 1.1, par: "Indicate how your proposal addresses the objectives of the call"; 1.2; 1.3 and 2.3. Please indicate the maximum number of pages allowed under this specific heading. There is a 2 page maximum limit on the action plan requested within Section 1.1 "Specific Objective/s of the Action". The other sections/information indicated/requested do not have page limits as the onus is on the applicant to include the necessary information for an appropriate assessment of the project. F.120 Is there any reference document to show the agreement of all the members of the consortium to submit the proposal on their behalf? There is no such specific document. The coordinator is however requested to declare, when submitting the application electronically (Part 'A' of the Proposal 'Declaration' Section), that he has the consent of all partners. F.121 As to activity reports, the right column of the table is dedicated to either links to websites or files containing reports. As to the reports (not links to websites), is it then necessary to list them both in the right column of the table and upload them as separate pdf files? Applicants should kindly include links, not documents. This means a link to a website or a link to other official documents. The list should thereafter be converted to pdf and uploaded. F.122 Affiliated entities need to have a PIC number and can declare eligible costs. Therefore, we assume that having affiliated entities established in EU countries different from those covered by consortium members represents a broader geographical coverage of the applying consortium, determining a higher score in the evaluation of the proposal. Please confirm that our understanding is correct. Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. 34

35 Within this context, we draw your attention to the fact that the relevance of the partners to the project, number of countries and degree of involvement of the partners are among the Evaluation criteria ( page 14 of the call text, section 9. Award criteria). F.123 Is it admissible that a proposal partially identifies beneficiaries with co applicants? This question has not been understood. Please clarify through another submission to the functional mailbox. F.124 I understand that only one partner must be a national or regional or local public governmental authority and that not every partner must have in its consortium a national or regional or local public governmental authority? At least one of the applicants must be a national or regional or local public governmental authority or a network or association of regional or local public governmental authorities. Please consult Section 6.3 of the Call for additional requirements concerning the minimum five applicants in the consortium. F Do you have a model consortium / partnership agreement? If you don't have, could you send us a step-by step guideline with the most important information and criteria? There is no such model agreement available. The SEP submission tool prompts applicants to insert relevant information about the consortium accordingly. F.126 In Section 3, Part B, Annex1, table "Participants involved in work package", does the column "Participant No" refer to participating organizations (for example SMEs, Governamental Authorities, etc.) or to specific persons (whose CV is attached to the proposal)? The aim of this section is to obtain as much information as possible on the proposed work packages, in view of the evaluation. In this regard, please include as much information as possible accordingly. F.127 Is it possible to consider XXX (Italian training institution) as a SME acting in the tourism sector within the field: «other tourism related fields if their relevance for the project proposal is duly justified by the applicant» (letter a), point 6.3 Eligibility conditions for consortia )? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. Within this context, please be guided by the previous questions/answers concerning SME`s, such as F.114 F.128 We are working to put together a proposal to answer the current COSME call around sustainable tourism. Regarding the letter of support from a ministry associated with tourism, could you tell me if you would consider a letter of support from the Local Enterprise Partnership to be appropriate? 35

36 As mentioned on page 9 of the call text: "The consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed delivered by a public national governmental authority of one of the eligible countries, namely a Ministry at national level (or in case of countries with decentralised competences in tourism a Ministry at regional level) in charge of tourism and/or regional development or any other area which is in relation to the object of the proposal." The letter of support has therefore to be delivered as indicated above. F.129 I would like to know what does "transnational tourism product" mean? Moreover, the package of services that will be offered should be implemented in every country of the project's partners or is it sufficient to implement the product only in the country of the lead partner, and the other partners only have to promote the service? If the package of services should be implemented in every country of the project's partners, my second question is if the proposed "transnational tourism product" can be different for all the partners or should be covering a strictly common itinerary? Please refer to page 5 of the call text (Section 2.2.3b: Be Transnational) for additional clarifications. As mentioned in the Call, the product must be transnational in nature (common link/feature/topic/theme) and has to cover/ be developed in at least 4 countries, not only in the country of the lead partner. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. F.130 Further to F.106, what are the modalities for the sending of the English translation in order to ensure an effective receipt of the document? Is it possible to send an English translation of the proposal during weeks following the closure of the call for proposals, ie. by the mid of October 2014? As stated in F.106, a translation into English of the full proposal is not essential although it would facilitate the work of evaluators. It is up to the applicant to decide whether to include a full translation or not. On the other hand, a faithful translation into English of the abstract should indeed be included in Part B of the proposal, as indicated in the Guide for Applicants. If the applicant decides to go ahead with a translation into English, the translation should be included as part of the electronic submission by the established deadline of 7 th October. The translation should be converted into pdf, and submitted as a single document alongside the contents of Technical Annex I ("Description of Work" section). Thereafter, it should be uploaded through the online submission tool, by clicking the "Description of Work" upload button. F.131 Can you kindly confirm which are the documents that need to be submitted by October 7th? Please refer to the online link where full details on submission may be found. F.132 Is it possible to add other Work Packages in the existing template, since there are only two of them? Yes, you can add as many as necessary. 36

37 F.133 We do not understand what shall we do with the file "most recent activity reports"? Which details do you need? And what kind of activities to fill in? Are activity reports financial reports or reports regarding activities performed? We would like to have a list of the main, most recent activities of the applicants, in order to have a better understanding of the participants. These can be both financial and activities related. Please also refer to Question/Answer F.121 for additional clarifications concerning activity reports. F.134 Should we include the letter of support from a regional/national tourism Ministry in the technical document description of the work? Yes, please. F.135 We would like to confirm with you if our partner XXX (association of Danish regional/local public authorities and tourism bodies) would fulfill the criterion below: 'at least one of the applicants must be either a national or regional or local public governmental authority or a network or association of regional or local public governmental authorities'. Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. F.136 Concerning the activity reports list, what should be included in the column : link to website or other official documents? Do I have to mention in detail which activities we did each year? Please refer to Questions/Answers F.121 and F.133 for additional clarifications concerning activity reports. F.137 We understood that one of the partners has to be a public governmental body as defined in art. 6.3 of the call. However, in the FAQ n. F.50 you write: Hence, if one of the applicants of the consortium is a national public governmental authority (or a regional public governmental authority in those countries where there is regional competence in tourism) there is no need to deliver a support letter. In all other cases, including when an applicant has delegated powers or acts on behalf of a governmental authority, such a letter of support is needed and it is compulsory for the eligibility of the consortium. Does this mean that it is not necessary to have a public partner in the team, but that the eligibility of the consortium is given in case you have an organization with delegated powers (e.g. regional marketing agencies) and in addition a letter of support of a national/regional governmental organization? At least one of the applicants must be either a national or regional or local public governmental authority or a network or association of regional or local public governmental authorities. Please read the full text in Section 6.3 2b for additional details. 37

38 F.138 We would like to know which are the necessary documents to be collected from the partners? Please read carefully through the call and this FAQ, as many questions/answers (such as K.22 and K.54) are of direct relevance to your question on partners. Concerning submission, the link to the online tool is the following: (refer to 'the submission system'). Of importance, through the same link, is also the section "Documents & Links". F.139 Could XXX Region Business Development Centre (from Italy) be considered as a Public national or regional or local governmental authority or an association of regional or local governmental authority? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. F.140 Turismo XXX (from Spain) is a public corporation whose capital is mainly public. Should we participate in this call as a public authority or as an SME? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. F.141 Can you tell us where on the website of the program is the link to electronically send the application and the documents they ask us? Concerning submission, the link to the online tool is the following: (refer to 'the submission system'). Of importance, through the same link, is also the section "Documents & Links". F.142 We do not understand what you mean with affiliated entities. Do they refer to entities that are not directly members of the project, but they will be linked to the project through one of the official partners? As indicated in the Description of Work Template, affiliated entities are defined in Article 122 of the Financial Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012. Further clarifications are also provided in this FAQ, such as questions/answers F.40, F.110 and K.36. F.143 Is the document EASME MODEL GRANT AGREEMENT there to fill it out and send it now with the application, or only when the application is approved? The document should not be filled in at this application stage. F.144 We have an issue with one of the intended partners in our proposed partner scheme. The partner in subject is a Municipality in Greece (therefore local authority), which has not yet acquired an official written support to participate in the proposal as partner from the 38

39 respective Municipal Council, which is the eligible local governmental body. Can the letter of support from the Municipal Council be secured following the submission of the proposal? As indicated in the Call (Section 6.3 2b), the consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed. Therefore please submit the letter of support as indicated (ie. with the project proposal). F.145 The call is requesting an activity report and asking for a Link to the website or other official documents. What is meant by this exactly and should they be in English? Please refer to Questions/Answers F.117, F.121, F.133 and H.2 H.4 for additional clarifications concerning activity reports and related language issues. F.146 Part B Annexes requires the upload of CVs. Do we have to upload only one pdf document ( all the participating partners ) or each CV separated? Please group them together and send them as one file. F.147 We are looking for the support of the European Commission (cultural program, especially city on stage or some help program like this one) and financial partners, to organise a new event in the south west of France, dealing with different other European countries (Spain, UK, etc.), and different activities : tourism, industry, social, economy, culture and street art. We would like to know if we can have financing for this kind of event and if so, which documents should be filled? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. Within this context, please be guided particularly by the eligibility conditions for consortia included in Section 6.3. Feel also free to consult the Commission web pages for alternative sources of funding in the form of other Calls. As regards tourism, the following link should be of interest: F.148 Is it necessary to attach to the application the CVs of the organizations? All applicants and partners have to upload the CVs of the persons delivering the actions. Please see also question/answer F.146 F.149 I would like to know if in the participant portal, I have to upload also the Legal Entity Form which I would like to understand what is it. Actually I uploaded the following documents: 1.the registration document, 2.the statute, 3. the legal representative's document, 4. VAT Extract, 5. Bank Financial Identification, 6. Balance Sheet. Therefore I would like to know if these documents are required only to the coordinator or also to all the partners. 39

40 For the coordinator and partners, please at this stage only send the documents requested within the Call for Proposals and through the submission tool. In any case, please also note that documents needed to assess the financial capacity of successful applicants will be requested at a later stage. F.150 Could you help me to understand this: The consortium coordinator must submit with the project proposal a letter of support of the project idea and the activities proposed delivered by a public national governmental authority of one of the eligible countries, namely a Ministry at national level. Who is supposed to sign a letter of support is it the Ministry? And Where/When should we present it? As in the platform submission of proposal there is no place where to upload such a file. Please be guided by previous questions/answers in this FAQ, to include F.5, F.50, F.51, F.69, F and F.89 The support letter can be attached with the Annex 1 'Description of work'. F.151 I need to know if milestones must be submitted for Work Packages, since in the Guidelines for applicants these are not mentioned. The aim of this section is to obtain as much information as possible on the proposed work packages, in view of the evaluation. In this regard, please include as much information as possible accordingly. Exclusion Criteria G. Selection criteria G.1. In article 4. Budget available and Funding of Projects, it is written that EASME expects to co-fund 5 proposals. Does it mean that the EASME expects to co-fund 5 proposals at all (among all the applicants all over EU)? Yes, we confirm that 5 projects among all the projects are expected to be co-funded. G.2. What is an activity report? An activity report is a document presenting the activities/ results of an organisation over a given period of time. G.3. What is the purpose of the excel file activity report- tourism-product and which kind of information should be provided in it by which type of legal entities? The activity has to be submitted to assess the operational capacity of the applicants. See question H.2 G.4. In which language should supporting document such as activity report be submitted? Supporting document can be submitted in any language of the European Union. 40

41 G.5. On page 14 of the call it is stated that an exhaustive lists of previous projects and activities performed and connected to the policy field of a given call or to the actions to be carried out must be provided. Is the operational capacity of SMEs presenting no projects track record but a relevant experience in the policy field of the call considered as relevant by the Commission? We would encourage SMEs to give a track of previous projects. In any case, all information (also experience in the policy field of the call) will be examined. G.6. If our consortium has as a coordinator a public governmental authority it is necessary to add another partner of this category at the point b of the table? Or the mean of this scheme is that the public authority could not act as coordinator? Section 6.3 "Eligibility conditions for consortia" states at point 1 that: "One of the applicant must act as the consortium coordinator." Any of the entities forming the consortium may act as "coordinator". Moreover, at point 3 it is stated that: "(3) Applicants (coordinator and consortium partners) in the project consortium must correspond to the definition of the following target organisations [ ] : - Public governmental authorities [ ]" Both coordinator and consortium partner can correspond to any of the listed entities, including a public governmental authority. H. Award criteria I. Legal commitments K. Financial provisions K.1. Does the lead applicant need to have a minimum turnover to be selected as lead applicant? The lead applicant needs to be able to lead the action and the implement it but is there a minimum turnover? Does the turnover of the applicant need to be superior or equal to the requested grant? Please refer to point 8.1 Financial capacity of the call. K.2. The EU grant is limited to a maximum co-funding rate of 75% of eligible costs, are internal staff costs considered eligible to cover the remaining 25%? Is it the same both for public bodies and for SMEs? The maximum co-funding rate is 75% for ALL eligible costs. Staff costs are included in the 75%. All applicants are submitted to the same rules. K.3. How can we demonstrate our financial capacity? When do we demonstrate it: when we submit the proposal or when we sign the financing contract? 41

42 Financial capacity is to be demonstrated at a later stage. K.4. What is the procedure to choose the subcontractor? Can't we already mentioned the organisation that we judge more adapted? Concerning sub-contracting please read point 11.1 c) K.5 Can we include among the eligible costs, costs with the consultancy in writing the proposal? Please read point 11.1.c) concerning sub-contracting. K.6. Is it possible to outsource a part of project management activities (management of documentation, financial reporting)? Please read point 11.1.c) concerning sub-contracting. K.7. Can you please give me some more details on the funding model for this call? What % of private investment do we have to input in the project, or it s 100% financed by the EU? Is there any minimum and maximum investment amount required for the proposal/project? Please read section 4 of the call text. The EU grant is limited to a maximum co-funding rate of 75% of the eligible cost. The maximum grant will be EUR per project. K.8. Can a consortium of tourist promoters and association of hoteliers be included in the project? Yes, please read section 6.3 of the call. K.9. Can the drafting of the project be an eligible cost? If we outsource the writing of the project to an external organization, specialized in projects editing, can we consider that cost an eligible cost? When are the costs for the realization of the project eligible? The costs are considered eligible only when the grant agreement is signed. Therefore the outsourcing of the writing of a proposal is not considered as being an eligible cost. K.10. I have a question regarding the financing rate of the programme. The project call mentions a financing rate of 75%. This is no problem for public authorities or bodies governed by public law to receive 75 % of subsidies. The 2 SMEs of my consortium are in France and Malta. Is it possible (legal) to grant them with a 75 % financing rate? The 75% co-financing rate applies to the whole project. The consortium will be composed of public authorities and of SMEs. There is no restriction for SMEs to receive grants. K.11. I would like to kindly ask you for a clarification related to the financial provisions. Specifically, in point 11 c) of the call is stated that partners could co-finance their participation with their own resources. Are staff costs intended as own resources? Is the partner allowed to cover its 25% with costs related to the staff working on the project? Staff costs is not a resource, but should be counted as a cost. They are part of the eligible costs. Concerning the remaining 25% which could be of the partners own resources, there is no need to specify to which kind of costs/items they will be allocated. K.12. I would like to know if the 25 % of co-financing can be achieved with the costs of employees of the municipality. 42

43 Please see question K.11 K.13. Is there is a limit to respect concerning the working time in the global budget we want to summit? Yes, there is a limit to be respected. Please read the Article 6- Eligible and ineligible costs, section A.3 (ii) of the Grant Agreement "annual workable hours means the period during which applicable collective labour agreement or national working time legislation". K.14. Can the self-financing of 25% be covered by the working time of the participants? No. According Article 11 of the Call financial provisions Section c) Co-financing, there are three provisions: Beneficiary's own resources, income generated by the action and financial contributions from third parties. K.15. Can the flat-rate amount of 7% be supported by the coordinator for all the beneficiaries general administrative costs? No, each beneficiary has to support its own eligible indirect costs representing a flat rate amount of 7% of their own total eligible direct costs. K.16. Is there is a limit to respect concerning the subcontracting in the global budget we want to summit? There is no specific amount or a certain limit but is has to cover only limited part of the action. The subcontracting has to follow the rules as described in Article 11 of the Call Financial provisions Section 11.1 (e) and in Article 10 of the Grant Agreement Implementation of action tasks by subcontractors section 10.1 Rules for subcontracting action tasks. K.17. The starting date of the action can be April 2015 but can we begin our project in October 2015 for a duration of one year? The signature date is the starting date of the actions as defined in Article 3 of the Grant Agreement Duration and starting date of the action. K.18. What kind of beneficiary s own resources are eligible costs for co-financing (only direct cash-flows or also sponsorship of conference-rooms etc.)? Own resources must not be confused with in kind contribution. Please refer to Article of the Grant Agreement for third parties contribution. K.19. How is the reporting of co-financing to be done and what are eligible proofs for reporting? Once the Grant Agreement is signed, financial guidelines and templates will be at the disposition of the beneficiaries in order to guide them on the declaration/reporting of costs and revenues. At this stage no relevant information is available. K.20. In your web page and in the participant portal some templates are provided. Among them there is a grant agreement. Does that mean that at this stage we have to prepare the grant agreement or is just information for the future once the applicants to be founded are decided? 43

44 No, the grant agreement stands there as an informative document. The grant agreement will be formally send to selected proposals later on in the procedure. K.21 Page 10 of the Call for Proposals (box marked Attention ) indicates that all applicants should "provide any useful supporting document and proof of fulfilment of the abovementioned compulsory requirements. I was under the impression that an organisation's PIC code was enough to provide this proof and wanted to check that each applicant must indeed provide supporting documentation? Applicants have to provide any useful supporting document and proof as stipulated in the "Attention" box. As mentioned, it is their responsibility to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements. K.22 Can you also please confirm that the term applicant in sections 7 and 8 of the Call for Proposals refers to all partners in the consortium and not just the co-ordinator applicant? And, therefore, that all partners have to provide a declaration of honour and a profit and loss account/balance sheet for the last financial year? The term "applicant" refers to all applicants-partners in the consortium and not just the coordinator. As a further clarification to the previous message, please note that documents needed to assess the financial capacity of successful applicants will be requested at a later stage. K.23 We are an Italian SME in the legal form "sas", we made our request to change the current legal form into that of "sole proprietorship." The requests have not yet been accepted and we would like to know if we can still participate as sas and then change during the work our legal form. S.a.s (Società in accomandita semplice) is a legal entity eligible to participate under this Call as part of the SME category. The applicant has to apply under the legal form he possesses at the time of the closure of the Call. K.24 We would like to kindly clarify the co-funding issue. Would staff costs suffice as regards to co-financing? What evidence do you require at application stage (vis-a-vis staff costs commitment)? Also, is Office space and tangible equipment eligible for co-financing purposes and if yes, can you kindly indicate what evidence we have to provide with the application? No. According Article 11 of the Call, FINANCIAL PROVISIONS Section c) Co-financing, there are three provisions: Beneficiary's own resources, income generated by the action and financial contributions from third parties. Own resources must not be confused with in kind contribution. K.25 Is Revenue meant as any sales or financial transation related to the activities of the project? Like for example sales of tickets and itineries? This question has not been understood. Please clarify through another submission to the functional mailbox. K.26 As regards travelling and accomodation, are there any Per Diem guidelines when it comes to accomodation/travelling during the project meetings and events? How are flights costs calculated? Is there a formula like in Erasmus+? 44

45 No. Calculation of this type of costs has to take into consideration what is stipulated in Article 6 part 6.2.C, Other direct costs of the Grant Agreement, and in the Reference Numbers of Annex 2 Section 4 on Travel Costs. K.27 Could the co-funding rate of 25% be covered with personnel costs for every partner? No. According to Article 11 of the Call FINANCIAL PROVISIONS Section c) Co-financing, there are three provisions: Beneficiary's own resources, income generated by the action and financial contributions from third parties. Own resources must not be confused with in kind contribution. K.28 I have a question regarding the form of project and financial management within the consortium: is it possible for the Lead Partner organization with stable financial background, but no available staff, to subcontract the project and financial management tasks to another legal entity who has not as well established financial capacity as the Lead Partner organization, but has several years of previous project management experiences and therefore is able to provide the necessary staff and competences for these tasks for the consortium? No. Subcontracting has to cover only limited part of the action and the subcontracting has to follow the rules as described in Article 11 of the Call FINANCIAL PROVISIONS Section 11.1 (e) and in Article 10 of the Grant Agreement IMPLEMENTATION OF ACTION TASKS BY SUBCONTRACTORS section 10.1 Rules for subcontracting action tasks. K.29 We will participate in this proposal as subcontractors. We would like to know if we need to attach in the application any documents, and if yes what documents are these. The Grant Agreement procedure is to be established between the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, the Coordinator and its partners, namely the "beneficiaries" of this action, as clearly stipulated in the Grant Agreement model. All provisions for potential subcontractors are in Article 10 of the Grant Agreement and the only relation and/or communication the subcontractors may have is with the "beneficiaries" and not the Executive Agency. K.30 Are small differences between that automatically derived Income and expenses sheets in Annex 2 allowed? It is up to the potential beneficiary to establish a balanced budget. The section in the Cost summary has to be equal to revenue summary and all amounts have to be presented always in whole numbers. K.31 The call indicates that the maximum grant will be EUR per project. Can you please confirm whether EUR.- is the maximum EU grant (co-funding rate of 75% of eligible costs) or is the total eligible cost (total budget of the project)? The figure refers to the maximum EU co-financed grant. K.32 I would like to understand the co-financing part. In the call, it is written that the maximum amount is per project. My question is if the European Commission will allocate to each project and then the partnership needs to co-finance 25% more ( ) OR if the total grant is in which the 25% of co-financing are included (so of EU grant and of co-financing). Please refer to Question K.31 above. 45

46 K.33 What kind of beneficiary s own resources are eligible costs for co-financing. Only direct cash-flows or also sponsorship of conference-rooms etc.? Own resources must not be confused with in kind contribution. Please refer to Article of the Grant Agreement for third parties contribution. K.34 Are eligible costs for co-financing congruent with general eligible costs as defined in Call p.18 / 11.2? The costs covered by the co-financing must be aligned with the general conditions of eligibility. K.35 How is the reporting of co-financing to be done and what are eligible proofs for reporting? Once the Grant Agreement is signed, financial guidelines and templates will be at the disposition of the beneficiaries in order to guide them on the declaration/reporting of costs and revenues. K.36 Is it necessary to indicate in the budget form the break-down of the costs of actions implemented by the affiliated entities? Is there a specific form? Will the Affiliated entity need to sign the Accession Form? The estimated budget for the action is set out in Annex 2 of the Grant Agreement. The estimated eligible costs are broken down by beneficiary and affiliated entities and per budget category. The affiliated entities will be mentioned in the Grant agreement and DoA, but not signing the GA. The Accession forms are necessary for all the partners (including affiliated entities). K.37 Could the declaration of honour contain in a single statement all the conditions required "exclusion criteria, absence of conflict of interest (section 7 of the call), financial (section 8.1) and operational capacity (section 8.2.)"? It is preferable to have each condition required in a separate statement, but enclosed in the same declaration of honour. K. 38 We have had an enquiry by a university institute asking, whether VAT, e.g. of travel costs, are covered by the budget of projects funded via COSME. I couldn't find any information on VAT in the Grant Agreement nor any further details to the COSME regulations in general. Could you help me with this question? Please see point 11.2 of the call for proposals document: Eligible direct costs: Costs of travel (for meetings, including kick-off meetings where applicable, conferences etc.), provided that these costs are in line with the beneficiary's usual practices on travel. Ineligible cost: deductible VAT. K. 39 As to cost analysis, does the budget file indicate (with a warning or similar) if there are clear mistakes? (For examples if the co-financing does not comply with the rules, etc.) There are no warnings foreseen in the template for detailed budget. K. 40 How is depreciation to be calculated? Are there rates per year already established or can applicants indicate a rate according to their evaluation of the single case? (For example depending on the expected use of equipment). 46

47 There is no pre-defined rate for depreciation, the rules to be followed are mentioned in the call document: Eligible costs are the depreciation costs of equipment or other assets (new or second-hand): only the portion of the equipment's depreciation corresponding to the duration of the action/project and the rate of actual use for the purposes of the action may be taken into account by the EASME. This is to be described clearly and convincingly in the related work package description of Annex 1. K.41 Section 8.1 Financial Capacity indicates : "the table provided for in the application form, filled in with the relevant statutory accounting figures, in order to calculate the ratios as detailed in the form". Where is the table referred to in the quoted paragraph of the call's text actually located? This table is not available. As a further clarification to the previous message, please note that documents needed to assess the financial capacity of successful applicants will be requested at a later stage. K.42 Please refer to the documents (the profit and loss account, the balance sheet, the business plan) which can demonstrate applicants' financial capacity. How shall we upload them or where exactly shall we insert them? Are the documents proving financial capacity needed for the lead organization only or for all applicants in the consortium? The rules of financial capacity are applicable by applicant, for all potential applicants within the consortium. As a further clarification to the previous message, please note that documents needed to assess the financial capacity of successful applicants will be requested at a later stage. K.43 I am drafting the budget and I appreciate if you could inform on which percentage of the total budget we can subcontract. Can this subcontracting be displayed in any partner's budget or just the coordinator`s? For sub-contracting, please see article 10.1 of the Grant Agreement model "Rules for subcontracting action tasks". K.44 Are there any restrictions or guidelines on how the funds should be or can be distributed between the 5 legal entities? This does not concern fund distribution, but rather co-funding for the implementation of the foreseen actions related to this call. The deferent beneficiaries within the same contract will have to receive funds according to the actions that they will really implement. K.45 Where is it possible to find information on guidelines regarding the hourly rates of personnel cost? Does a guideline of the EU exist regarding standard rates of personnel? Such guidelines are not available. Personnel costs should be calculated and follow the rules according to Article 6.2.A of the Grant agreement model. K.46 On what guidelines are the rates of daily allowance/subsistence cost during travel to be based on? 47

48 The daily allowance should be calculated on the basis of the usual practices of the participant, same as the travel costs. Please also refer to Point 4 of the Budget Template document - "Reference Numbers in Annex 2". K.47 Is it correct to say that if a project has 5 promoters, one from each country, the maximum grant per promoter is , so the project could result in a grant of ? Or the total amount granted is , in this case, per promoter? The maximum amount of the EC funding per consortium cannot exceed EUR. That does not mean that the maximum amount that will be granted will be necessary equally disbursed among the partners ( EUR each), but rather on the bases of the actions to be implemented. K.48 The national or regional or local public governmental authority that will participate in the project will provide a letter of support of the project idea. Apart from that do they need to contribute otherwise in the project and especially financially as the funding is 75%? According to Section 11.c of the Call "Financial provision/co-financing" the remaining funding (25% or more) has to be covered by the beneficiaries' own resources, income generated by the action or financial contribution from third parties. The configuration of the remaining funds to cover the project is up to the consortium to decide, as long as all contractual obligations as stipulated in the Grant Agreement model are respected. K.49 Does a local public governmental authority (city council) have to provide the profit and loss account, the balance sheet for the last financial year because in our case, they do not use this type of financial reporting? What documents should we provide for that partner besides the letter of support and reference list? The local authority has to provide all kinds of information related to its financial state, or in the absence of such information, the justifications for this. K. 50 In Question F.74 of this FAQ, part of the answer is: ''Costs for persons working under other civil contracts, meaning by subcontracting, to perform part of the work to be carried out under the project are considered as costs for subcontracting". The subcontracting needs to be in accordance with point 11.1.e of the Call. Can you please explain if a physical person is hired with a civil contract (subcontracting), then how in practice would the following part of point 11.1.e be implemented: ''the beneficiary must award the contract to the bid offering best value for money or the lowest price''. More specifically, how does the bidding process happen in this case when a physical person, not a company should be engaged? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. Within this context, we draw your attention to the fact that CV`s and competencies of personnel are important parts of the evaluation process. Please refer as well to article 6.2.A Eligible and Ineligible Costs-Personnel Costs. 48

49 K.51 In the Part B - Technical Annex 2 (Budget form), there is no way to include shared costs among partners. Is it possible to distribute one specific cost (i.e subcontracting for the Web Portal design) among several partners and then get as many invoices from the service provider as partners involved in this cost? Yes, this is permissible. K.52 There are two grant options/types of coordinator or consortium: -. Mono beneficiary grants and Multi-beneficiary grants. Please, could you give us more details on who can apply for Mono beneficiary and Multi-beneficiary grant? This is not a relevant question since this call demands for at least 5 partners. So there is no option for Mono beneficiary contracts in this case. K.53 Regarding travel costs, when you say in the grant agreement that: "C.1 Travel costs and related subsistence allowances (including related duties, taxes and charges, such as nondeductible value added tax (VAT) paid by beneficiaries that are not public bodies acting as public authority) are eligible if they are in line with the beneficiary s usual practices on travel". Does this mean that partners which are public bodies will not be able to justify their travel costs even if those are necessary to cover our planned meetings in Annex 1? All expenses foreseen by the action and necessary to implement the activities, travel costs included, are eligible for all partners. K.54 We are preparing the document request in the Art. 8.1 and 8.2. I would like to know if the requests refer only to the Applicant (so, I will upload the profit and loss account of applicant, the declaration of honour signed by the applicant, the activities' report of the applicants etc...), or if I have to collect and upload this document for all partners? All partners must provide this kind of information. K.55 Confusion stems from answers K.3, K.22 and the same section 7 and 8 of the call. Is the answer to question K.22 ( All of them have to provide all information requested under section 7 & 8) contradicting the answer to question K.3 (Financial capacity is to be demonstrated at a later stage)? As a further clarification to the previous message, please note that documents needed to assess the financial capacity of successful applicants will be requested at a later stage. As indicated in Section 8.1, on the basis of the documents submitted, if the authorizing officer considers that financial capacity is not satisfactory, he may: - request further information; - propose a grant agreement without pre-financing; - propose a grant agreement with a pre-financing paid in instalments; - propose a grant agreement with a pre-financing covered by a bank guarantee (see section 11.4 below); - where applicable, require the joint and several financial liability of all the co-beneficiaries; - reject the application. K.56 Are Norwegian organizations/companies eligible for subcontracting? Yes, as long as they respect the rules and provisions of subcontracting as stipulated in article 10 of the grant agreement model. 49

50 K.57 In the case that we ask for more than euros of grant we have to submit the profit and loss account and the balance sheet for the last financial year for which the accounts were closed. Does this apply also for partners that are public bodies? Be aware that for instance municipalities do not have financial accounts. In that case, what do we send instead? Please refer to Question/Answer K.49 K.58 If a public administration participates as partner in the consortium for the project, is it allowed to execute its actions through a commission of management through a public agency that is instrumental to that administration? Would that budget be understood as a subcontract? Please note that the EASME services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. The onus is on the applicants to demonstrate that they fully respect the requirements set in the call, and that they justify the proposed partners' relevance for the project. Our reply to your questions has to be considered as a clarification of the published call for proposals document and under no circumstances as an assessment of parts of a proposal. Within this context, please note that the chosen partners, including the public administration, will have the duty to execute the project actions` foreseen and allocated tasks. Only eligible entities competent to perform the implementation of the activities in question should participate in the consortium. As for budgeting, according to Article 10 of the Grant Agreement model, subcontracting may cover only limited parts of the action. Therefore core activities could not be performed under subcontracting. K.59 Is there a limit on the subcontracting percentage? There is no specific percentage for subcontracting as long as all rules and obligations stipulated in Article 10 of the Grant Agreement are respected. K.60 Would a 50% of co-financing be correct? The EU grant is limited to a maximum co-funding rate of 75% of eligible costs. Any other option below 75% is possible. K.61 The project we are designing would have a performance time of 18 months, with 3 certifications of expenditure. Must each certification of expenditure be accompanied by an auditing of accounts? In case of being necessary, would that audit be for each partner of the project? We d also like to know if the guarantee costs are eligible on the project. The funding for this Call does not exceed the threshold requiring an audit report accompanying the financial statement. The pre-financing guarantee is requested in order to limit the financial risks linked to the pre-financing. For this reason, it cannot be considered as a cost. For other costs related to bank guarantee fees linked to the action, please refer to Article 6 of the Grant Agreement model "Eligible and Ineligible Costs". 50

51 K.62 In the FAQ document I read your reply "In a first time the documents that you need to attach to your application are described on the webpage: Other documents will be requested at a later stage of the procedure." Should the declaration for financial capacity and the letter of support be submitted at a later stage of procedure? Also because in the SEP there isn't a section to upload these documents. The letter of support has to be submitted with the application as is clearly stipulated in the Call. Please also refer to other questions/answers in this FAQ, amongst them F.144 for additional clarifications. Financial capacity is to be demonstrated at a later stage. K.63 We are using but there are no details on budget. What are the limits for salaries, administration cost, travels, etc.? In our website, where the Call is published, there is a link with the budget template to be used in the context of this Call. Amongst other sections, please refer to the Reference Numbers explanations, which is part of the budget template. Additionally, please also refer to Article 6.2 of the Grant Agreement Model "Specific conditions for costs to be eligible". K.64 In the call for proposals, section 8.1 it is said that instead of the balance and profit and loss account, we can submit the following document: the table provided for in the application form, filled in with the relevant statutory accounting figures, in order to calculate the ratios as detailed in the form. Which table is this? Is it the one of the Financial Viability Self-Check of the following link? Documents needed to assess the financial capacity of successful applicants will be requested at a later stage. L. Publicity and Data protection L.1 Can you organise a conference about funding opportunities under this Call in Spain in July? In line with the principle of equal treatment of all potential applicants and also limited human resources, the requests addressed to the Commission services/ Executive Agency for participating in specific seminars aiming at explaining requirements of particular calls for proposals cannot be accepted. All questions for clarifications concerning a particular call for proposals need to be addressed through a functional mailbox of the call and the answers to these questions will be published on the call's website. L.2 Will you organise an Info Day about this Call in Brussels? We are not organising any info day in Brussels concerning specific calls for proposals. We have organised a general Info Day on EU funding opportunities for tourism in March 2014 where we presented also general information on the 2014 tourism calls under COSME 51

52 L.3. I am involved in various tourism industries projects, I d like to discuss a larger project with someone of your team to see if this could fit into what you could support. Please note that the Executive Agency services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. Such committee can under no circumstances perform its duties prior to the submission of proposals. L.4. I would have to bring to your attention a project for the revival of areas of natural interest. The idea is to create a website [ ]. I hope for a response in order to understand what kind of documents to provide. Please note that the Executive Agency services cannot, for reasons of equal treatment, neither assess proposals at this stage nor help to draft proposals. Assessing the proposal is the exclusive competence of an appointed evaluation committee. For the type of documents to provide, please refer to the text of the Call and the Guide for applicants: It is up to the applicant to ensure that its project proposal is in line with the objectives and fulfils all requirements defined in the call text. L.5. I am interested in this call but my knowledge of English might not be sufficient, will you provide an Italian translation? Is there a person/ office/ portal which could provide me with help? We regret to inform you that the documents are only available in English. We are not aware of any Italian portal that would have translated this call. L.6. Could I have a phone number to call with an Italian spokesperson for Cosme program? In line with the principle of equal treatment of all potential we cannot provide the phone number, all clarification questions have to be asked to the functional mailbox of the call and the answer will be published in FAQ document on the website. L.7. We are an Italian group and we would like to know if there is any Italian contact that could help us with our project? There is no contact point in the member states for this call. All information is available on the website M. Submission of proposals M.1. We already have a participant Identification Code (PIC number) delivered when applying to another EU funding programme, can we keep it? The PIC numbers are indeed universal, it is delivered once and you keep it for applying to other programmes. 52

53 M.2. When will the Submission and Evaluation of Proposals Programme (SEP) system be available? The SEP system will be configured and tested in the coming weeks. It will be made available as soon as possible. Information will be published on the webpage as soon as the system is available. M.3. Are templates (Technical Annexes 1 & 2) customisable concerning the style, or should we keep this style and content? No, the Technical annexes 1 & 2 shouldn t be customised. M.4. It is stated in the Guide for Applicants that maximum lengths of response must be respected. Now I see that only technical annex 1 " Description of work " > item in Section 1 > 1.1 Specific objectives of the Action has a mention about the length of the answer : maximum 2 pages. What is the average and/or recommended final record length? How long a Work Package can be? Only the part Specific objectives of the action (Part 1.1 of the Technical annex 1 Description of Work should be maximum two pages long. In general, there is no length requirement unless stated. There is no length requirements for work packages. M.5. Can you send me a link to the e-proposal system when it is in place? A link will be made available on the webpage: No direct answer/ information are provided by . M.6. Concerning Work Package's participants, is it possible for some associations or other organisms to participate to a Work Package without incorporating the official Consortium? Or Work Package must been implemented only by the Consortium's official partners? Consortium's official partners are the only partners of the project or just a selection of the 5-10 privileged partners? And if organisms non incorporated in the official Consortium can participate to a Work Package: can they benefit from the eventually awarded grant as regarding they participate to the implementation project? The work packages describe the different steps of the implementation of the project. There are different architectures for the work packages ( ie: in certain work packages only 2 partners can participate, in other 5 for example). Sub-contractors can be mentioned in a work package, but there are no considered as partners. Only the members of the consortium are considered as partners. M.6. How many WPs could be developed under this proposal - only two as written in the Description of work template or more? There is no limit in the number of Work Packages (WPs). Your project can be developed in as many work packages as deemed necessary M.7. In the section 8.2 you request a declaration of honour and the following supporting documents: curriculum vitae and the organisations activity report. How should we upload them? 53

54 In the electronic submission system (SEP) there are fields for the upload of Curriculum vitae and activity reports ( as well as the list of previous projects). The declaration of honour is to be inserted in the description of work document. (Print screen of the SEP system) M.8 Do you have a template for the declaration of honour? No, we don t provide such kind of template. M.9. In the call for proposals the documents to check the operational capacity are specified to be a description of the technical equipment, tools or facilities and patents at the disposal of the applicant in relation to the proposal Is there a template for this? Where should we upload that information in the participant portal? (There are just five boxes to attach information and no one refers to the description of technical equipment, tools or facilities and patents at the disposal of the applicant in relation to the proposal ). Moreover in order to check the capacity, also a declaration of honour and other documents are requested. Is this the same declaration of honour stated above? Where should we upload these documents? The description of equipment can be annexed in the Part B Description of Work. Concerning capacity, if your question concerns the technical capacity, you should annex it to the Part B Description of work. As a further clarification to the previous message, if your question concerns financial capacity, please note that this is to be demonstrated at a later stage. 54