CEN/CLC Guide 16:2009

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-september-2009
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Request for EC financial support – Guidance to the secretariat / convenorship of the
responsible Technical Body
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: CEN/CLC Guide 16:2009
ICS:
01.120 Standardizacija. Splošna Standardization. General
pravila rules
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

CEN/CENELEC Guide 16
Request for EC financial support –
Guidance to the secretariat/convenorship
of the responsible technical body

The present guide lays down some fundamental principles that were agreed between CEN MC, CLC/CS and the
European Commission for the allocation of contracts dealing with financial support from the Commission in the context of
mandated work.
A first draft of this guide was adopted by the CENELEC Technical Board with Decision: D134/C058.

The CEN Technical Board approved a revised version of the document with Resolution 4/2009 and agreed to its
publication as a CEN-CENELEC Guide. The revised document was adopted by CENELEC BT with Decision D134/C198.

The General Assemblies of CEN and CENELEC approved the document by correspondence for publication as
CEN/CENELEC Guide 16.
Edition 1 / June 2009
European Committee for European Committee for
Standardization Electrotechnical
Standardization
Avenue Marnixlaan 17
B – 1000 Brussels
Tel: +32 2 550 08 11 Tel: +32 2 519 68 71
Fax: +32 2 550 08 19 Fax: +32 2 519 69 19

www.cen.eu www.cenelec.eu
CEN/CENELEC Guide 16 Request for EC financial support
Guidance to the secretariat/convenorship of the responsible Technical Body

Request for EC Financial Support –
Guidance to the secretariat/convenorship
of the responsible technical body

Introduction
Everywhere in the European Union, managing the money provided by tax payers through public
funding requires extraordinary precautions. As a minimum, service providers are submitted to
tendering processes to ensure that the tax payer gets the best value for his effort.
When CEN or CENELEC benefit from a contract of the European Commission to develop a
standard, they manage public funding and distribute it to a number of players. Some of these
players are cited in directives, for example the ESOs and their National Members. Because of this
official appointment, they are not required to go through tendering processes. Some of the official
partners they are obliged to deal with by law also benefit from this monopoly situation and are
exonerated from tendering.
However, such is not the case of working group convenors or other market players appointed by
the technical bodies, when they apply for a share of public funding to reward the work they perform
as secretary to their groups. Experience has shown that the technical bodies must and do in effect
perform tendering in such situation.
The purpose of this document is to provide a clear picture of these rules that already apply, but that
are discovered by the technical bodies often too late, when the contract is already signed – and
sometimes even worse: after the contract is closed, leading to the obligation to refund the
European Commission partly or integrally.
The ambition of this document is to allow technical bodies to get a full picture of the obligations by
which they will have to abide when evaluating whether to apply for public funding. In some cases,
they will consider that the public funding is worth accepting constraints such as opening the
Working Group convenor positions. In some other cases, they will consider that the funding is not
worth such obligations, and they will perform the work on a strictly voluntary basis. In both cases,
they will have taken their decision based on clear information, which is deemed an improvement as
compared to the situation when this document was written.

Edition 1 / June 2009 3
Request for EC financial support CEN/CENELEC Guide 16
Guidance to the secretariat/convenorship of the responsible Technical Body
1 Background
In the context of the negotiations between the European Standardization Organizations (ESOs)
and the European Commission (EC) on the Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA), the EC
raised some concerns associated with the EC financing for the mandated work to CEN and
CENELEC and the respect of the principles laid down in the Financial Regulations of the European
Community. In particular, worries were expressed about the openness and transparency of the
procedures for the appointment of those convenors and secretaries in CEN and CENELEC
technical bodies who are coming from industry or third organisations other than CEN and
CENELEC Members in charge of the respective technical body.
Indeed, according to the current provisions of the Framework Partnership Agreement related to the
EC financing of CEN and CENELEC technical bodies work, only the man/days cost of permanent
staff of NSBs or NCs can be considered as eligible for EC financial support. Therefore, industry
experts acting as convenors or secretaries can receive EC financial support only in quality of
external “subcontractors”.
However, according to the EC Financial Regulations, any “subcontractor” financed under EC
projects has to be selected following a tender procedure ensuring the necessary openness and
transparency. As for the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations Part 2, the following provisions
foresee that:
1.1 Art 3.2.3.2 Responsibiliti
...