In 1996 Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, and Spain took the initiative to organize a seminar in Brussels on the European Union MEDA programme. Up to 400 companies registered for this event structured in two parts: a first one devoted to presentations from the European Commission officials in charge of the implementation of the programme and a second one where one to one company meetings took place in order for them to get to know their competitors better and identify potential partners to participate together in EU tenders.
Due to the success of this "pilot" seminar, the four countries decided to invite the rest of the EU Member States to join this initiative in order to organize smaller events two to three times a year focused on one specific sector at a time. The first sector seminar in the present format was held in 1998 and at that time Austria, Finland, France, Sweden and United Kingdom had already joined the project.
At present, Permanent Representations and Trade Promotion Organizations from 24 Member States are involved in the organization of the sector seminars and more than 4.000 companies have already participated in the 43 events held so far. One or two Member States (in a rotating order) are responsible for the logistics of each seminar while the other countries are responsible for inviting and registering companies of their own nationality.
The next WEBINAR will focus on the changes introduced in the latest version of the “Practical Guide (PRAG) for Procurement and Grants for European Union external actions” and the implications for European companies. It will take place ONLINE on Thursday, November 26, 2020.
The new Practical Guide (PRAG) applicable as of 1 August 2020 introduces some changes that may impact the way of European companies participate in tenders and call for proposals. The webinar will take place on 26th November from 15H00 to 16:00. Germany and Spain are the main organizing countries of the webinar and a significant number of Member states organizations co-organize the event. The platform will be Webex. For those companies that cannot access to the session the same day, we plan to record it in order to make it available on this web page.
In recent years, the implementation of the budget that the European Union allocates to third countries has experienced what could be regarded as a revolution. Indeed, up to five years ago most of the so called External Action budget was managed directly by the European Commission and the recipient countries’ authorities. Nowadays, the implementation of a large chunk of that financial envelope is delegated to a wide variety of actors, such as Member States development agencies, International Financial Institutions and non-profit making organisations