Compliance requirements
The bidder must confirm that the company, its administrative, management or supervisory body members, procurists and other persons authorised to represent, control or make decisions on behalf of the company are not subject to exclusion grounds. The checks cover, among other matters, participation in a criminal organisation, corruption, fraud, terrorism-related offences, money laundering or terrorist financing, and the unlawful use of child labour or human trafficking. As a rule, the check concerns final convictions issued during the last five years or an exclusion obligation that remains in force.
The bidder must also have no outstanding tax or social security payment obligations. For tax debt, the notice states a threshold of EUR 0; under Estonian rules, the tax authority does not issue a tax debt certificate where the total debt administered by that authority is below EUR 100 or payment has been deferred. The bidder must confirm compliance or provide information about payment or a binding settlement agreement.
Further exclusion grounds include breaches of environmental, social and labour law, bankruptcy, liquidation or another insolvency situation, an agreement with creditors, assets managed by a liquidator or court, suspended business activity, serious professional misconduct, competition-distorting agreements, conflicts of interest, previous material contract breaches or early termination, false statements, and failure to submit required information or documents. The checks also cover enabling an unlawfully staying foreign national to work, compliance with international or Estonian sanctions, convictions for tax offences and legal restrictions on participation in the procurement. Where applicable, the bidder may provide evidence of remedial measures restoring its reliability.
Qualification criteria and exclusion grounds
The bidder must submit a free-form service description as part of the tender. It must contain separate sections covering the assessment context, objective and scope; assessment tasks and expected results; the proposed approach; data collection and analysis methods; possible limitations, risks and mitigation; the process for reaching conclusions and recommendations and quality control; reporting to the contracting authority; the timetable and activity plan; organisation of work, division of responsibilities and project management; possible added value; and the planned use of artificial intelligence or other text-generating tools. The substantive quality, justification and relevance of the service description will be assessed during tender evaluation.
The bidder must provide an expert group of at least four members, consisting of an expert group leader and at least three assessment experts. At least three assessment experts must meet at least one of the required assessment-area requirements. Collectively, the group must cover knowledge and experience in economics and business support, implementation of European Union funding, and regional development analysis. The bidder must submit a list of expert group members, their areas of responsibility and signed CVs for all required experts. The CVs must confirm that the experts are not involved in implementing EU structural funding for 2021–2027 or planning for 2028 and beyond.
The expert group leader must have managed at least two completed, similar assessment, analysis or research projects during the 72 months preceding the launch of the procurement. Similar experience includes assessing, analysing or researching the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact or sustainability of a measure, operational programme, development plan, programme, policy area or funding source. Project-selection assessments and project audits do not qualify as equivalent experience. A project may have started earlier, but it must have been completed within the last 72 months. A signed CV containing sufficient verifiable information must be submitted.
The tender must confirm compliance with all tender-document requirements; conditional tenders are not allowed. In a joint tender, a power of attorney for the joint tenderers must be provided. The bidder must also describe and justify any information designated as a trade secret, or confirm that the tender contains no trade secrets. The bidder must identify authorised persons not visible in the commercial register, including their names and personal identification codes, or confirm that no such persons exist. During contract performance, environmentally friendly solutions must be preferred, including online meetings where possible, digital documents, files of reasonable size and deletion of unnecessary digital materials.