Calls for Expression of Interest launched by EC DG REGIO concerning a pilot project on Integrity Pacts.

Integrity Pacts represent a civil control mechanism/tool to help governments, businesses and civil society fight corruption in public procurement.

All the information on these calls is available on the InfoRegio website:

http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/index.cfm/en/policy/how/improving-investment/integrity-pacts/

http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/newsroom/funding-opportunities/calls-for-expressions-of-interest/

The two calls aim at selecting public authorities to pilot (call n° 1) and civil society organisations to monitor (call n° 2) Integrity Pacts in a number of projects financed by the Structural and Cohesion Funds in the 2014-2020 programming period. Although the call has been launched and will be funded by REGIO, we got confirmation that interest from ESF managing and contracting authorities would be welcome.

We therefore invite you to inform through your communication tools so we can maximise the interest to participate in this call with regard to ESF funded projects by filling in the application form under call for expression of interest n° 1.

The form should be filled in and returned to DG REGIO by 25 June 2015.

In order to disseminate this information to targeted national authorities, please take into account that the ESF funded projects that could most benefit from this pilot project would be those with (some of) the following characteristics:

•             High general public interest and visibility of the project

•             High (political) sensitivity of the project

•             Complexity of the project  OR New type project / new sector for the Contracting Authority therefore no experience with such projects

•             Challenging tender evaluation

•             Financial size of the project

•             To improve public trust in the contracting authority / To achieve credibility and legitimacy in the public eyes of procurement for this project

•             To improve overall organisation of the work  and / or administrative capacity & knowledge  on project implementation within the Contacting Authority

•             To help improve / facilitate the communication with contractor and sub-contractors / To increase trust among contactor & contracting authority & general public

•             To reduce possible implementation delays and facilitate smooth implementation of the project & Possible savings to the budget

•             Preventive approach (real-time controls vs. ex-post controls) for reducing the number of irregularities in project implementation / To prevent possible corruption or misuse of the funding