EU Call for Proposals: Inviting Competitive Enterprises, Clusters and Business Support Organisations

Deadline: 8 June 2018

The European Union (EU) is seeking proposals to promote competitiveness and business sophistication among Turkish Cypriot’s Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), Clusters and Business Support Organizations through adaptation to standardized business environments.

Objectives

Therefore, the specific objectives of this call for proposals are:

to improve manufacturing standards and exploitation of new production line/technology;
to change and diversify product ranges and production processes; and to improve commercialisation of products and services;
to innovate manufacturing processes and technologies and to support innovative business models/ideas;
to enhance creditworthiness of SMEs and clusters;
to improve SMEs’ and clusters’ general financial and management practices, upgrading their accounting systems and reporting procedures;
to increase compliance with new procedures, standards and certifications as a result of the implementation of food safety and product safety local legal texts and make companies ready for inspection by relevant actors;
to strengthen the role of BSOs in their provision of services and networking opportunities towards the other specific objectives

Priorities

This call would like to attract different economic operators (SMEs, Business Support Organization and Clusters) with specific priorities such as:

food and drink industry (including agro-processing);
mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering industries (EEI);
healthcare and business services;
commercialisation of products and services.

Funding Information

Minimum amount of EUR 100,000; maximum amount: EUR 250,000

Eligibility Criteria

Lead applicant
- In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
  - be a legal person, and
  - fall under the EU “Small and Medium Enterprise” definition: consist of fewer than 250 employees and have EITHER an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million, OR an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million. Applicants should provide a bona fide declaration concerning the number of employees and financial data;; or
  - Be a non-governmental organisation, association, foundation, chamber, and union, non-profit or for-profit cooperative. However, non-profit organizations and non-profit cooperatives must demonstrate that their operations are strictly non-profit making. They must provide, together with their application, the company statutes in which provisions must feature prohibiting distribution of the profit to the shareholders. As an alternative the organisation should demonstrate, through an audit report covering the last three years that profit has never been distributed to the shareholders. In addition, the Board of Directors should declare that profit will not be distributed to shareholders in the future, and
  - be established in the northern part of Cyprus, and
  - be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with their partners, not acting as an intermediary,
- The lead applicant may act individually or with co-applicant(s).
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 all of the eligibility criteria as applicable to the lead applicant except for the following criteria:
  - “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”
  - “be established in the northern part of Cyprus”.
- In addition to the categories referred above, the following are also eligible:
  - be legally established in a Member State of the European Union or on the territory of a Member State of the European Economic Area or on the territory of Candidate Countries for Accession to the European Union.
Affiliated entities
- 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 the applicant may hence be:
      - Entities directly or indirectly controlled by an applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by an 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.