NEWS - JOURNALISM PARTNERSHIPS - PLURALISM

No, the eligibility criteria apply both for the proposal applicants, and the geographical scope of activities.

The financial capacity assessment is normally done during grant preparation evaluation but may also be done during implementation. If a participants’ financial capacity must be assessed, they will be contacted by the Central Validation Service through the Funding & Tenders Portal.

The financial assessment is valid for 18 months after the closure date of the most recent assessed accounting period. If during this period the participant applies for another grant or tender, the financial documents will not be requested again. However, if there are justified grounds to doubt the financial capacity, a new assessment may be triggered even before the end of the 18 months.

For more information please see the Rules for legal Entity validationPDF .

Entities that are neither from the EU nor from countries included in the List of non-EU Participating Countries in the Creative Europe ProgrammePDF may only participate as:

1: associated partners(i.e. partner organisations which participate in the action but without the right to get grant money), or;

2: subcontractors. Nevertheless, please note that in the case of subcontracting, such entities must be listed in the subcontracting table in form Part B, Section 5.2 'Work packages, activities, resources and timing' of the application. Applicants must explain why such subcontractors' tasks could not be carried out by any other organisation from an eligible country, and how this choice complies with the principle of sound financial management. Subcontracting

Subcontracting should normally constitute a limited part and must be performed by third parties (not by one of the beneficiaries/affiliated entities). Subcontracting going beyond 30% of the total eligible costs must be justified in the application.

As indicated in the call text, applicants from the following countries associated to the Creative Europe Programme are eligible to apply: List of non-EU Participating Countries in the Creative Europe ProgrammePDF

Please note that only countries that have signed agreements to participate in the Creative Europe Programme that includes “Cross Sectoral” strand are eligible under CREA-CROSS-2026-JOURPART call.

For example, if a country is listed as "participating in the Creative Europe Programme", then it participates in all strands of the programme, including “Cross Sectoral” strand. However, some countries do not participate in all strands, so, in the case of CREA-CROSS-2026-JOURPART call, an applicant is eligible if a country where the applicant is registered is listed as "participating in the Creative Europe Programme" with “Cross Sectoral” strand indicated in the list of strands.

Nevertheless, please note that if a country only participates in the "Creative Europe Desks" action of the "Cross Sectoral" strand, then it is not eligible to participate in CREA-CROSS-2026-JOURPART.

As stated in section 6 of the Call document, the application process requires applicants to register in the Participant Register before submitting the proposal.

For more information please see the Rules for legal Entity validationPDF .

The Beneficiary is responsible for ensuring that the Call's terms and conditions are met, including ensuring that the absence of conflict of interest and equal treatment principles are upheld.

Section 6 'Eligibility' of the Call document states that: ¨[...]

Financial support to third parties is allowed for grants or similar forms of support and prizes under the following conditions:

− the calls must be open, published widely and conform to EU standards concerning transparency, equal treatment, conflict of interest and confidentiality

[...]

and

[...] Your project application must clearly specify why financial support to third parties is needed, how it will be managed and provide a list of the different types of activities for which a third party may receive financial support. The proposal must also clearly describe the results to be obtained.[...]

The guidance on good practices for implementing financial support to third parties (FSTP) in EU grantsPDF clarifies, inter alia, that:

[...] EU standards concerning transparency, equal treatment, conflict of interest and confidentiality means, for instance, that if external experts are engaged for evaluating the FSTP proposals, they must ensure that they are independent from the organisations applying for FSTP sub-grants and keep proposal information confidential. [...]

For more information please consult Article 6 D.1 of theAnnotated Grant AgreementPDF, as well as the guidance on good practices for implementing financial support to third parties (FSTP) in EU grantsPDF .

As stated in Section 5, “Admissibility and documents,” of the Call document, applicants are not required to submit any documents beyond the application form (Parts A, B, and C) and the Declaration on Standards and Independence (DSI) at the time of proposal submission.

If a proposal is selected for funding, a financial capacity check will then be carried out. The applicable rules can be found rules-lev-lear-fca_en.pdfPDF.

Section 6 – Eligibility states that applicants must be legal entities (public or private) established in eligible countries, and explicitly notes that natural persons are not eligible, except self-employed sole traders.

The call does not fund individual journalists directly, since the Call aims to address the systemic challenges faced by the media sector. Funding is only available to organisations, either in consortia (Topic 1) or as single applicants/consortia (Topic 2) that set up funding schemes to support third parties. Individual journalists may only receive support indirectly through financial support to third parties (regranting) implemented by the organisations funded by this Call.

Yes, the Call allows multiple proposal submissions, without restricting the role of each applicant. Applicants should bear in mind the possibility that all their proposals may be selected. Thus, they must consider to which extent their operational and financial capacity allows them to carry out all proposed projects simultaneously, especially if they act as coordinators in any of them.

However, if there are several proposals for very similar projects, only one application will be accepted and evaluated; the applicants will be asked to withdraw the others (or they will be rejected).

Section 13, "Important," of the Call document states:

"Multiple proposals — Applicants may submit more than one proposal for different projects under the same Call (and be awarded funding for them). Organisations may participate in several proposals. BUT: if there are several proposals for very similar projects, only one application will be accepted and evaluated; the applicants will be asked to withdraw the others (or they will be rejected)."

Therefore, according to the Call text, similarity applies to proposals submitted under the same Call and is assessed based not only on the consortium but also on the proposed activities.

For proposals that share similarities with ongoing projects selected under previous Calls, the assessment focuses on the risk of double funding, as defined in Article 194 of Regulation (EU) 2024/2509.

Applicants must clearly explain in their proposal how their project avoids the risk of double funding of activities.

Call section 6 "Eligibility" sets out the eligibility rules for both beneficiaries and their affiliated entities.

The Call states that [...]

"In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

− be legal entities (public or private bodies)

− be established in one of the eligible countries [...]

Furthermore, Call section 6 "Eligibility" also states:

[...] Geographic location (target countries)

For Topic 1 “NEWS – Journalism Partnerships - Collaborations: Activities must take place in the eligible countries.

For Topic 2 “NEWS – Journalism Partnerships - Pluralism”: Activities must take place in the eligible countries, and in at least 4 EU Member States. [...]

The list of previous projects should display each beneficiary’s past projects along with the corresponding amount they received in each.

For both Call Topics, as indicated in section 10 of the Call document, this Call uses grants that 'will be a budget-based (actual costs, with unit cost and flat-rate elements). This means that it will reimburse ONLY certain types of costs (eligible costs) and costs that were actually incurred for your project (NOT the budgeted costs). For unit costs and flat-rates, you can charge the amounts calculated as explained in the Grant Agreement (see art 6 and Annex 2 and 2a).

The funding rates are specified in the call document and are different for topic 1 and topic 2. When establishing the estimated budget, the applicants should apply the funding rates specified in the call per topic to all the eligible costs, including FSTP.

If a third party is selected to carry out a part of project for a certain amount i.e financial support recipient, this amount must be spent on the project only and this same third party should not have to contribute financially/co-finance to the beneficiary/coordinator.

No. Only the documents mentioned under section 5 "Admissibility and documents" should be included in the application. Any other document will be discarded.

The list of previous projects is included in Application Form B and counts towards the 50 page maximum.

Each participant has to sign and provide their own DSI, including the coordinator. The coordinator may not sign a DSI on behalf of any of them.

The DSIs should then be in a single .pdf document and uploaded to the submission portal.

The Declaration on Standards and Independence (DSI) must be signed and stamped. If you do not have a traditional stamp, please include your position within the entity alongside your signature to confirm that you are authorised to sign on behalf of your organisation.

These indicators refer to the proposal participants.

Section 10 'Legal and financial set-up of the Grant Agreements' clearly states that projects may NOT produce a profit (i.e. surplus of revenues + EU grant over costs). For-profit organisations must declare their revenues and, if there is a profit, it will deducted from the final grant amount (see art 22.3).

Section 6 ‘Eligibility” of the call document stipulates that “[…] Financial support to third parties is allowed for grants or similar forms of support and prizes under the following conditions:

− the calls must be open, published widely and conform to EU standards concerning transparency, equal treatment, conflict of interest and confidentiality − the calls must remain open for at least two months

− the outcome of the call must be published on the participants’ websites, including a description of the selected projects, award dates, project durations, and final recipient legal names and countries

− the calls must have a clear European dimension. […]”

Provided the calls for FSTP abide by those rules, the frequency and size is entirely left to the discretion of the project participants.

Nevertheless, please note that, as stated in section 6 of the Call document, “[…]Your project application must clearly specify why financial support to third parties is needed, how it will be managed and provide a list of the different types of activities for which a third party may receive financial support. The proposal must also clearly describe the results to be obtained. […]”

The eligibility criteria laid out in section 6 of the Call document apply to proposal applicants and their affiliated entities.

When proposing funding support to third parties (FSTP) as a project activity, applicants are invited to establish and present their own criteria that will apply to the FSTP as part of their proposal, while respecting section 2 and section 10 of the Call document, and Article 6.2 of the Annotated Grant Agreement.

The Call section 6 stipulates that :

• "For Topic 1 “NEWS – Journalism Partnerships - Collaborations”: Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least three applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities), which complies with the following conditions: − at least three independent entities from a minimum of three different eligible countries"

after which it also stipulates:

• Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’ . Please note that if the action will be implemented by the members, they should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible).

According to the conditions listed above, the topic requires at least 3 beneficiaries. Should the beneficiaries decide to form another entity, they can add it to the list of beneficiaries either at the time of GA signature or later through an amendment, but this new entity cannot replace them neither in the proposal nor in the Grant Agreement.

As stipulated under section 10 of the Call document, after grant signature, beneficiaries will normally receive a prefinancing (PF) to start working on the project, which is maximum 40% of the maximum grant amount.

Further PF payments would go beyond this amount. A second (or more) prefinancing for max additional 40% of the grant is foreseen after reception of a prefinancing report, including technical and financial report. This last should show how much of the first prefinancing has been spent: if 70% or more the second prefinancing will be paid in full, if less than 70% the second prefinancing will be proportionally reduced.

The reporting and payment arrangements are fixed in the Grant AgreementPDF (Data Sheet, point 4 and art 21 and 22) .