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Services - 356072-2020

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Submission deadline has been amended by:  417227-2020
29/07/2020    S145

Belgium-Brussels: Global Action to Support EU Space Programmes

2020/S 145-356072

Worldwide

Service Contract Notice


1.Publication reference
EuropeAid/140853/DH/SER/MULTI
2.Procedure
Restricted
3.Programme title
Global Action to support EU Space Activities
4.Financing
Partnership Instrument 2020 Annual Action Programme (ref. C/2020/2779 of 5 May 2020)
5.Contracting Authority

European Union, represented by the European Commission, Brussels, BELGIUM

Clarifications may be sought from the contracting authority at the following email address: FPI-TENDER-EU-SPACE-140853@ec.europa.eu

At the latest 21 days before the deadline for submission of applications stated at the point 23 below.
 Clarifications will be published on the website of DG International Cooperation and Development at the latest 5 days before the deadline.


Contract Specification

6.Nature of contract
Global price
7.Contract description
The service contract will provide the following three components:
 1) Support to EU Space Diplomacy and Space cooperation and dialogues with targeted third countries, facilitating institutional and industrial cooperation and promoting regulatory convergence through the organization of meetings, seminars, round-tables in the EU and in third countries.
 Indicative individual third countries for this component:
 • Countries with which cooperation on space already exists: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China Colombia, India, Japan, Norway, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United States, the Western Balkans (Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, the Republic of North Macedonia and Serbia).
 • Indicative countries to develop new cooperation on space: Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania in Africa; Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in Asia; Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia; New Zealand in the Pacific; Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama and Peru in Latin America and the Caribbean.
 • Indicative targeted countries for the extension of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS): Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine(1), Syria and Tunisia (European Neighbourhood South), and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova (European Neighbourhood East).
 2) Assessment of EU Space Programme components (namely EGNSS2 and Copernicus(3)) market uptake potential and analysis of targeted markets all over the world, in particularly important ones for the EU and for EU industry, and setting up an online exhibition space — ‘EU Space platform’.
 The indicative targeted countries under this component are: Nigeria in Africa; Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in Asia; Azerbaijan in Central Asia; Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico in Latin America.
 3) Expansion of the ‘EU Space Prizes’ to targeted countries, to encourage Galileo(4)/EGNOS and Copernicus-based innovation and market uptake, namely by fostering cooperation on EU Space state-of-the-art technology, the development of applications, and new business opportunities in Space-related fields.
 The indicative countries concerned under this component are:
 • European Neighborhood: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine(5), Syria and Tunisia (European Neighbourhood South) and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova Ukraine (European Neighbourhood East) and Turkey.
 • The Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru and the United States.
 • Africa: Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
 • Gulf countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
 • Asia: India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam
 • Pacific: Australia and New Zealand.
 (1) This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the member states on this issue.

(2) https://www.gsa.europa.eu/european-gnss/what-gnss

(3) https://www.copernicus.eu/en

(4) http://www.esa.int/Applications/Navigation/Galileo

(5) This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the member states on this issue.
8.Number and titles of lots
One lot only.
9.Maximum budget
EUR 6 000 000
10.Scope for additional services
The contracting authority may, at its own discretion, extend the service contract in duration and/or scope subject to the availability of funding up to the estimated amount of approximately EUR 3 000 000. Any extension of the contract would be subject to satisfactory performance by the contractor.


Conditions of Participation

11.Eligibility
Participation is open to all natural persons who are nationals of and legal persons (participating either individually or in a grouping — consortium — of tenderers) which are effectively established in a member state of the European Union or in a eligible country or territory as defined under the Regulation (EU) No 236/2014 establishing common rules and procedures for the implementation of the Union's instruments for external action (CIR) for the applicable instrument under which the contract is financed (see also heading 29 below).
 Participation is also open to international organisations.
 For UK candidates or tenderers: Please be aware that following the entry into force of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement(*) on 1 February 2020 and in particular Articles 127(6), 137 and 138, the references to natural or legal persons residing or established in a member state of the European Union and to goods originating from an eligible country, as defined under Regulation (EU) No 236/2014(**) and Annex IV of the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement(***), are to be understood as including natural or legal persons residing or established in and to goods originating from, the United Kingdom(****). Those persons and goods are therefore eligible under this call.
 (*) Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community.
 (**) Regulation (EU) No 236/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2014 laying down common rules and procedures for the implementation of the Union's instruments for financing external action.
 (***) Annex IV to the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement, as revised by Decision 1/2014 of the ACPEU Council of Ministers (OJ L196/40, 3 July 2014).
 (****) Including the overseas countries and territories having special relations with the United Kingdom, as laid down in Part Four and Annex II of the TFEU.
12.Candidature
All eligible natural and legal persons (as per item 11 above) or groupings of such persons (consortia) may apply.
 A consortium may be a permanent, legally-established grouping or a grouping which has been constituted informally for a specific tender procedure. All members of a consortium (i.e., the leader and all other members) are jointly and severally liable to the contracting authority.
 The participation of an ineligible natural or legal person (as per item 11) will result in the automatic exclusion of that person. In particular, if that ineligible person belongs to a consortium, the whole consortium will be excluded.
13.Number of applications
No more than one application can be submitted by a natural or legal person whatever the form of participation (as an individual legal entity or as leader or member of a consortium submitting an application). In the event that a natural or legal person submits more than one application, all applications in which that person has participated will be excluded.
14.Shortlist alliances prohibited
Any tenders received from tenderers comprising firms other than those mentioned in the shortlisted application forms will be excluded from this restricted tender procedure unless prior approval from the contracting authority has been obtained (see practical guide – PRAG – 2.6.3.).
 Short-listed candidates may not form alliances or subcontract to each other for the contract in question.
15.Grounds for exclusion
As part of the application form, candidates must submit a signed declaration, included in the standard application form, to the effect that they are not in any of the exclusion situations listed in section 2.6.10.1. of the PRAG.
 Candidates included in the lists of EU restrictive measures (see section 2.4. of the PRAG) at the moment of the award decision cannot be awarded the contract.
16.Sub-contracting
Subcontracting is allowed.
17.Number of candidates to be short-listed
On the basis of the applications received, between four and eight candidates will be invited to submit detailed tenders for this contract. If the number of eligible candidates meeting the selection criteria is less than the minimum of four, the contracting authority may invite the candidates who satisfy the criteria to submit a tender.


Provisional Timetable

18.Provisional date of invitation to tender
3 November 2020
19.Provisional commencement date of the contract
1 April 2021
20.Initial period of implementation of tasks
36 months


Selection and Award Criteria

21.Selection criteria
The following selection criteria will be applied to candidates. In the case of applications submitted by a consortium, these selection criteria will be applied to the consortium as a whole unless specified otherwise. The selection criteria will not be applied to natural persons and single-member companies when they are subcontractors.
 1) Economic and financial capacity of candidate (based on item 3 of the application form). In case of a candidate being a public body, equivalent information should be provided. The reference period which will be taken into account will be the last 3 financial years for which accounts have been closed.
 — The average annual turnover of the candidate must be equal to, or exceed, EUR 2 000 000.
 2) Professional capacity of candidate (based on items 4 and 5 of the application form). The reference period which will be taken into account will be the last 3 years preceding the submission deadline.
 — The candidate has at least 20 permanent staff currently working for the candidate in the fields of space industry.
 — The candidate has at least 10 permanent staff currently working for the candidate in the field of fair and trade show organisation.
 — The candidate shall prove to have at least one local office or local correspondent/partner in each of the continents/geographical areas mentioned in section 7 component 3 above.
 3) Technical capacity of candidate (based on items 5 and 6 of the application form). The reference period which will be taken into account will be the last 5 years preceding the submission deadline.
 A. The candidate must have experience in providing services under at least three contracts, each with a budget of at least EUR 500 000 which were implemented at any moment during the reference period and all together covering at least four of the following subject areas:
 (a) the EU Space Program and in particular Galileo, EGNOS and Copernicus;
 (b) Space Governance;
 (c) frequencies;
 (d) satellite surveillance and tracking;
 (e) international (involving both EU and non-EU entities) cooperation on R&D in the field of space and related sectors;
 (f) market studies at international level for the space and related sectors;
 (g) Space Market development and applications;
 (h) public or economic diplomacy, trade promotion outside the EU, with a focus on space and related issues or other hi-tech fields (e.g. ICT);
 (i) business incubation, acceleration or mentoring of hi-tech based entrepreneurs.
 Altogether, the reference projects must have covered at least five third countries among the indicative list of countries of this action (ref. point 7), as well as the EU.
 B. The candidate must have experience in providing services under at least three contracts, each with a budget of at least EUR 100 000, which were implemented at any moment during the reference period and all together covering all the following subject areas:
 (a) organisation of prize competitions for innovative ideas based on high tech (e.g. space, ICT, programming and software coding) and events at international level (involving both EU and non-EU entities);
 (b) organisation of international conferences;
 (c) organisation of virtual exhibition/trade fair.
 Previous experience which caused breach of contract and termination by a contracting authority shall not be used as reference.
 An economic operator may, where appropriate and for a particular contract, rely on the capacities of other entities, regardless of the legal nature of the links, which it has with them.
 If the tenderer relies on other entities it must prove to the contracting authority that it will have at its disposal the resources necessary for the performance of the contract by producing a commitment by those entities to place those resources at its disposal. Such entities, for instance the parent company of the economic operator, must respect the same rules of eligibility — notably that of nationality — and must comply with the selection criteria for which the economic operator relies on them. Furthermore, the data for this third entity for the relevant selection criterion should be included in the tender in a separate document. Proof of the capacity will also have to be provided when requested by the contracting authority.
 With regard to technical and professional criteria, an economic operator may only rely on the capacities of other entities where the latter will perform the services for which these capacities are required.
 With regard to economic and financial criteria, the entities upon whose capacity the tenderer relies become jointly and severally liable for the performance of the contract.
 If more than eight eligible candidates meet the above selection criteria, their relative strengths and weaknesses must be re-examined in order to rank their applications and identify the eight best candidates in accordance with point 17 of this contract notice. The only additional comparative criteria that will be taken into consideration during this re-examination, in the order in which they appear below, are:
 1) the total number of projects found eligible under 21.3.1 and, in case of equality;
 2) the highest cumulated value of all the service contracts that meet criterion 21.3.1.
22.Award criteria
Best price-quality ratio.


Application

23.Deadline for submission of applications
The candidate attention is drawn to the fact that there are different systems for sending applications: one is electronic, one is by post or private mail service, the last one being by hand delivery.
 The application must be sent before the date and time limit for submission, as evidenced by the date and hour of the received email, in the first case, and by the postmark or deposit slip(6), in the second case. In the third case, it is the acknowledgment of receipt given at the time of the delivery of the application that will serve as proof.
 17.00 Brussels time on 25 September 2020.
 Any application sent to the contracting authority after this deadline will not be considered.
 The contracting authority may, for reasons of administrative efficiency, reject any application submitted on time to the postal service but received, for any reason beyond the contracting authority's control, after the effective date of approval of the short-list report, if accepting applications that were submitted on time but arrived late would considerably delay the evaluation procedure or jeopardise decisions already taken and notified.
 (6) It is recommended to use registered mail in case the postmark would not be readable.
24.Application format and details to be provided

Applications must be submitted using the standard application form, the format and instructions of which must be strictly observed. The application form is available from the following internet address: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/prag/annexes.do?chapterTitleCode=B

The application must be accompanied by a declaration on honour on exclusion and selection criteria using the template available from the following internet address: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/prag/annexes.do?chapterTitleCode=A

Any additional documentation (brochure, letter, etc.) sent with an application will not be taken into consideration.
25.How applications may be submitted

Given the specific circumstances, the contracting authority exceptionally allows for sending applications by email to FPI-TENDER-EU-SPACE-140853@ec.europa.eu

Please note that the deadline of dispatch is the same for both electronic and paper applications.
 Applications may be submitted in English either on paper (including an electronic version on a USB key) or by e-mail but must not be submitted by both means. If an application is submitted both by email and on paper, only the latter will be taken into consideration.
 Applicants are reminded that in case of paper submission, the electronic version saved on the USB key must be identical to the paper version. If there are any discrepancies between the electronic version and the original printed version, the latter has precedence.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to make use of electronic submission to facilitate the evaluation process. Only PDF files are accepted in order to preserve the integrity of the applications. Applicants must send their confirmation on the preferred option (email or on paper) to FPI-TENDER-EU-SPACE-140853@ec.europa.eu as soon as possible but not later than two working days before the submission deadline.

As the above mailing address has a limited capacity to receive emails (including attachments) of up to 30 Mb in size, please ensure that the electronic version of your offer sent by email remains below the limit. Applicants may use a lower quality of scanning than usual or reduce the size by any other technical means, however, bearing in mind that applications submitted need to be of a quality which can be easily assessed by the contracting authority. Applicants are also reminded to verify whether any internal restrictions apply for sending emails with large attachments.
 Submission in more than one email is not allowed unless a specific request is made by the applicant to the above-mentioned mail address, and accepted by the contracting authority. in such cases, detailed instructions on how to send an application through multiple emails would be provided to the applicant. Any such request must be sent to the contracting authority 3 working days before the deadline for submission of applications.
 It is highly recommended that applicants submit their electronic transmissions well on time as last minute submissions may create technical problems. The contracting authority cannot be held responsible for any delays linked to electronic submission of offers.
 If sent physically, the applications must be submitted in English exclusively to the contracting authority in a sealed envelope:
 — either by post or by courier service, in which case the evidence shall be constituted by the postmark or the date of the deposit slip, to:
 European Commission Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI.1), for the attention of Mr Ronan Mac Aongusa, EEAS Loi 02/306, 1049 Brussels, BELGIUM;
 — or hand-delivered by the candidate in person or by an agent directly to the premises of the contracting authority in return for a signed and dated receipt, in which case the evidence shall be constituted by this acknowledgement of receipt, to:
 European Commission, Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI.1), for the attention of Mr Ronan Mac Aongusa, EEAS Loi 02/306, Avenue du Bourget 1
 1140 Brussels (Evere), BELGIUM.
 The contract title and the publication reference (see item 1 above) must be clearly marked on the envelope containing the application and must always be mentioned in all subsequent correspondence with the contracting authority.
 Applications submitted by any other means will not be considered.
 By submitting an application candidates accept to receive notification of the outcome of the procedure by electronic means. Such notification shall be deemed to have been received on the date upon which the contracting authority sends it to the electronic address referred to in the application.
26.Alteration or withdrawal of applications
Candidates may alter or withdraw their applications by written notification prior to the deadline for submission of applications. No application may be altered after this deadline.
 Any such notification of alteration or withdrawal shall be prepared and submitted in accordance with Item 25. The outer envelope (and the relevant inner envelope if used) must be marked ‘Alteration’ or ‘Withdrawal’ as appropriate.
27.Operational language
All written communications for this tender procedure and contract must be in English.
28.Date of publication of prior information notice
22 May 2020.
29.Legal basis
Regulation (EU) No 236/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2014 laying down common rules and procedures for the implementation of the Union's instruments for financing external action and Regulation (EU) No 234/2014 establishing a Partnership Instrument for cooperation with third countries.
30.Additional information

Financial data to be provided by the candidate in the standard application form must be expressed in EUR. If applicable, where a candidate refers to amounts originally expressed in a different currency, the conversion to EUR shall be made in accordance with the InforEuro exchange rate of September 2020, which can be found at the following address: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/graphs/inforeuro.html