Sponsoring Agency: EUROCHAMBRES
Deadline Available: Available
Deadline Date (mm/dd/yyyy): 04/30/2021
Size of the Fund: USD $50,000 to $500,000
Within the EU4Business initiative, EUROCHAMBRES, the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry, signed a grant contract to implement the project ‘EU4Business: Connecting Companies’ (EU4BCC).
EU4BCC specific objectives are to strengthen the capacity of EaP local business associations in promoting trade relations with the EU through different types of actions. The action implemented within EU4BCC is organized on a sectoral basis. This will allow for a more strategic approach, targeting the specific needs and opportunities of each sector, and allow for the creation of alliances between EU and EaP businesses on a sectoral – and therefore more specific – basis.
The European Commission launched the EU4Business initiative that helps SMEs in the six countries of the EaP region to realize their full potential and boost economic growth. This action covers all EU activities supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the EaP countries. EU4Business programs are implemented through partner organizations identified through a call for proposals.
Eligible Sectors
• Bio/organic
• FoodWine
• Tourism
• Textiles
• Creative Industries
Actions
EU4BCC action within the above-mentioned sectors will be implemented through three types of actions:
Twinning’s: Twinning here is defined as Capacity Building / Peer to Peer Coaching for BSOs aiming at establishing direct links between BSOs from EU Member States and EaP countries to enable sharing of specific knowledge and best practices, to allow peer to peer exchanges and mutual cooperation. The action is not supposed to be a training, but rather include workshops, on-the-job coaching and/or peerto-peer exchanges, with the help of facilitators and experts
• B2B matching
• Study visits.
The action should cover as far as possible three of the following issues:
• Gender equality;
• Business opportunities opened up with the Eastern Partnership Agreements signed between the EU and EaP countries;
• Institutional building, between CCIs and BSOs, best practices, benchmarking, cooperation between companies;
• Transfer of know-how, transfer of technology, synergies with existing networks like Enterprise Europe Network;
• Job creation and poverty reduction;
• Businesses in rural areas run by women and men.
Funding Information
• The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 3.540.000,00
• Size of grants: Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall under the following maximum amount:
o Maximum amount: EUR 60.000,00.
• Therefore, the provisional budget for each action cannot exceed € 60.000.
Geographical Scope
Each action must take place in one of the six Eastern Partnership countries and in one of the EU countries.
In concrete terms, this means supporting the development of quality business networks, including the provision of adequate support and linkage services for SMEs. The main part of this component will consist of financial support to third parties’ actions to reinforce the action of sectorial BSOs, notably the internationalization of their SMEs, their capacity building, networking of these supported organizations as well as communication and visibility.
Eligibility Criteria
A BSOs partnership is composed of a lead applicant and co-applicant(s).
• The lead applicant must be an EU BSO.
• Co-applicant(s) are EU BSOs and/or EaP BSOs.
• If the BSOs partnership is composed of 2 applicants, the co-applicant must be an EaP BSO.
• If the BSOs partnership is composed of several EU and EaP co-applicants, the BSOs partnership should be composed of an equal number of EU BSOs and EaP BSOs (EU lead applicant included)
There are three sets of eligibility criteria, relating to:
• BSOs Partnership
• The actions for which a grant may be awarded
• The costs of the action: the budget should be composed of a set of eligible costs
• The grant awarded by EUROCHAMBRES will be based on the budget of the action.
Eligibility of Lead Applicants
• Legal criteria for Lead applicant and co-applicant
• Eligibility of the Lead applicant
• To be eligible, the lead applicant must be:
o a private or public legal
o entity non-profit making entity
o established in a Member State of the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden)
o The Lead applicant is directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s), not acting as an intermediary.
o If the BSOs partnership proposal is selected, the lead applicant will be identified as the coordinator in the grant contract to be signed between EUROCHAMBERS and the BSO partnership. The coordinator is the main interlocutor of the contracting authority. It represents and acts on behalf of any other co-beneficiary (if any) and coordinate the design and implementation of the action.
Eligibility of Co-applicants
• To be eligible, the co-applicant(s) must be:
o A private or public legal entity
o A non-profit making entity
o Established in a Member State of the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden)Established in one of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine).
More information at: https://connectingcompanies.eu/index.php/calls/
