Support for social dialogue

Section 6 of the call documentPDF clarifies the eligibility conditions of consortia, including the rules applicable to public authorities.

Public authorities are mentioned in the list of categories of eligible entities for the roles of other beneficiaries, affiliated entities and associated partners. Public authorities also include municipalities.

The only legal limit is the duration of the project. For example, if a project team member is recruited for the project and dedicates all his/her working time to the project, the number of person-months could be equal to the duration of the project itself.

Section 6 of the call documentPDF clarifies that a single applicant must be a European social partner organisation.

However, a national or regional social partner can submit a project as single applicant, provided that the European level is guaranteed by the involvement of a European social partner as an affiliated entity to the single applicant, or as an associated partner.

Section 6 of the call document (page 12) also clarifies the definition of “social partner organisations” for the purpose of the present call.

Two other participants at least must be included in the consortium: one organisation from a different eligible country to that of the coordinator, and a European-level social partner organisation. Of these two entities, at least one must participate as other beneficiary. The other can have different roles: other beneficiary, affiliated entity of the coordinator or of the other beneficiary, associated partner.

The Call DocumentPDF clarifies all eligibility requirements. There is no such upper limit.

Associated partners may use the applicant’s planned software system without a licence, but no project funds can cover their access (costs must be borne by the applicant (beneficiary).

Associated Partners can fully participate to the action, but do not receive funding from the grant. The letter of commitment mentioned in the call document may be used to confirm their engagement in the action, however their role must be described as appropriate in the application form.

The answer to these questions is provided in section 6 of the Call DocumentPDF.

Provided that the application meets all the other eligibility conditions, the applicants can be established in the following candidate countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye and Ukraine.

However, applicants from these candidate countries cannot be single applicants or consortium coordinators.

Section 6 of the call documentPDF clarifies that in case of consortia, the coordinator must be a social partner organisation at European, national or regional level.

To be eligible, the consortium needs to also meet the other criteria listed under the same section of the call document.

The other entities eligible as beneficiaries are listed under the same section. They include: social partners and business representative organisations; non-for-profit organisations; universities and research institutes; public authorities; and international organisations.

In the context of this call, social partner organisations are defined as representative organisations of workers or of employers, engaging in social dialogue.

Section 2 of the Call documentPDF provides the working definition used by the evaluators, both for the national and the European level.

Service providers based outside the eligible countries can be subcontracted, provided that:

• Recourse to subcontracting is well justified and fulfil the general eligibility conditions under the call;
• They are awarded using the beneficiary’s usual purchasing practices, provided these ensure subcontracts with best value for money and absence of conflict of interest..

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.

For both legal and administrative reasons it is not advisable to subcontract coordination duties by means of a service contract signed by the joint beneficiaries to an external company specialising in such work.

The beneficiary must implement the action in accordance with the agreed work plan and declare the actual time worked on the project together with the corresponding actual personnel costs; differences in euro value compared with the initial budget, including those caused by exchange-rate movements, do not by themselves require adjusting the work plan, even where the final staff costs in euro are lower or higher than those initially budgeted.

Individuals taking part in the project’s implementation as volunteers, as members of a participating organisation’s membership network, do not need to be formally mentioned in the consortium.

Where member organisations of a participating organisation are actively involved in the project’s implementation, they can participate in the consortium. Explanation on the possible participants roles in a consortium can be found in section 13 of the Call documentPDF.

The applicable rule appears in the Annotated Grant AgreementPDF. Staff provided by work agencies cannot be charged under budget category A (personnel). Such staff costs can be charged under other budget categories (B, subcontracting; or C.3 Other goods, works and services) if they comply with the eligibility conditions (see articles 6.2.B and 6.2.C of the Annotated Grant Agreement).

Although the application form is common to ESF+ actions and social prerogative actions, the SOC-DIALOG call is a social prerogative action. Filling this box is not mandatory, however it can be a useful manner to identify the target groups of the project, in complement to the explanation provided in the other boxes of the application forms.

This is possible. Projects supported under this call are co-funded by the European Commission, meaning that participant organisations also contribute with other resources.

The roles of affiliated entity and associated partner are different. The relevant information can be found in the Call DocumentPDF:

• Section 6 „Eligibility”, Eligible participants (eligible countries) on page 11
• Section 13 „Important”, with explanation on consortium roles, affiliated entities and associated partners (page 25).

More detailed explanations may be found in the Annotated Grant AgreementPDF (pages 155-160).

All beneficiaries, affiliated entities and associated partners must be registered in the Participant Register. The participant identification code (PIC) (one per participant) is mandatory for the Application Form. Since associated partners do not receive EU funding, they are not subject to legal entity or bank account validation. Information on the documents and information to provide is in the document “Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment”.

By default, the projects start on the first day of the month that follows the signature of the grant agreement. However, the beneficiaries can, in the grant agreement preparation phase, propose a different starting date which, is supported by reasonable justifications, can be accepted by the Commission.

If the organisers’ entire working time is already 100% financed by another EU project, their time cannot be charged to SOCPL and therefore cannot be considered as project co-financing. This is a strict no double-funding rule.

While costs cannot be claimed, the outputs/outcomes of these activities may be reported in SOCPL’s framework if they align with SOCPL objective, e.g. interviews that are directly linked to SOCPL goals.

There should be documented contributions with quantitative indicators (number of interviews/conversations facilitated via SOCPL’s platform) with qualitative outcomes (case studies, policy briefings stemming from SOCPL enabled engagements, etc.).

Also double counting of results must be avoided and if the same activity was reported under both projects it should be indicated in the reports.

The key distinction lies in transparency in reporting versus double-counting of results:

• If the same activity is relevant to and funded (fully or partially) by multiple projects, this must be clearly stated in the respective reports. Each report should acknowledge the shared nature of the activity, specifying the proportion of effort, resources, or outcomes attributable to the project in question.
• While an activity may be reported across projects (with proper disclosure), the results (e.g., outputs, outcomes, or impacts) must not be claimed more than once in aggregate reporting (e.g., for indicators like "number of training sessions delivered" or "participants reached").

For example, if a single workshop is co-funded by Project A and Project B, both reports may mention the workshop, but the total number of participants or sessions should not be counted twice in consolidated progress reports.