EU announces Grant Facility for Micro Small Medium Enterprise in Kosovo (Round 2)

Deadline: 26 November 2019

The European Union (EU) is seeking proposals for a program entitled “Grant Facility for Micro Small Medium Enterprise in Kosovo (Round 2)” to strengthen the local economy and reduce trade deficit in Kosovo by improving the capacities of Micro, Small, Medium sized enterprises (MSMEs).

Objectives

The specific objectives of this call for proposals are:

• Increase and improve production capacities, economic impact, and competitiveness of selected MSME’s in line with the EU quality management standards;
• Increase exports, substitute imports and facilitate job creation;
• Support innovation, diversification and development of business activities

Priorities

The priorities of this call for proposals are the following priority sectors:

• Information and communication technologies (ICT); and
• Services;

Size of grants

Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:

• minimum amount: EUR 20,000.00
• maximum amount: EUR 100,000.00

Eligibility Criteria

Lead applicant

In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:

• be a legal person and
• be 100% privately owned micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (according to the Kosovo definition and law); and
• be established and operational in Kosovo; and
• has sufficient financial capacity to carry out the proposed action or work programme; and
• be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary.

Co-applicant(s)

• Co-applicants participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the lead applicant.
• Co-applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria as applicable to the lead applicant himself.

Affiliated entity(ies)

• The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entity(ies).
• Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to co-applicant(s):
  • Only entities having a structural link with the applicants (i.e. the lead applicant or a co-applicant), in particular a legal or capital link.
  • This structural link encompasses mainly two notions:
    • Control, as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings:
      • Entities affiliated to an applicant may hence be:
        • Entities directly or indirectly controlled by the applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the applicant (granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
        • Entities directly or indirectly controlling the applicant (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the applicant;
        • Entities under the same direct or indirect control as the applicant (sister companies).
    • Membership, i.e. the applicant is legally defined as a e.g. network, federation, association in which the proposed affiliated entities also participate or the applicant participates in the same entity (e.g. network, federation, association,…) as the proposed affiliated entities.

How to Apply

• The application procedure consists of two phases:
  • Concept notes
  • Full applications
• In the first instance, only concept notes must be submitted for evaluation. Thereafter, lead applicants who have been pre-selected will be invited to submit a full application.

For more information, please visit https://bit.ly/2lun26U and download the guidelines.