Department of European Funds
Ministry of the Interior and Administration

Objective: use of the savings generated in the Programme Area PA20 “International police cooperation and combating crime”.

The procedure is launched to mitigate the risk of not achieving Programme/project results.

The allocation of funds within the procedure will take place subject to an amendment to the Agreement for the financing of the “Home Affairs” Program  NFM 2014-2021 between the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the former Polish Ministry of Investment and Economic Development (currently the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy).

Eligible applicants: Project Promoters of ongoing projects until the procedure for the allocation of savings has been completed.

Total amount available within the procedure: 59 288,01 euro, i.e. 264 413,66 Polish zloty (calculated on the basis of the average monthly exchange rate published in the C series of the Official Journal of the European Union, calculated for the 6 month period prior to the day of publication, i.e. 1 euro = 4,4598 Polish zloty).

The minimum amount for which additional funds may be requested is 50,000 Polish zloty.

Eligibility of expenditures:

Expenditure shall be considered eligible in accordance with the general principles, pursuant to Article 8.3 of the Regulation on the implementation of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014–2021 (available at fundusze.mswia.gov.pl).

In particular, the following direct expenditures shall be considered eligible upon meeting the criteria listed in Article 8.3.1 of the Regulation:

1. the cost of staff assigned to the project, comprising actual salaries plus social security charges and other statutory costs included in the remuneration, provided that this corresponds to the Project Promoter’s and project partner’s usual policy on remuneration. The corresponding salary costs of staff of national administrations are eligible to the extent that they relate to the cost of activities which the relevant public authority would not carry out if the project concerned were not undertaken.

In the case of cost of staff, it is only possible to adequately increase these costs in the case of project extension. It is not possible to add cost of staff for projects which previously have not provided for such costs;

2. travel and subsistence allowances for staff taking part in the project. Having regard to the principle of proportionality, travel costs, including subsistence allowance, may be calculated as a lump sum, on the basis of defined rules approved by the Programme Operator;
3. cost of new or second hand equipment. In case the Programme Operator determines that the equipment is an integral and necessary component for achieving the outcomes of the project, the entire purchase price of that equipment may, by way of exception from the rule contained in paragraph 4 of Article 8.2, be eligible;
4. purchase of land and real estate under the conditions set in Article 8.6 of the Regulation;
5. costs of consumables and supplies, provided that they are identifiable and assigned to the project;
6. costs entailed by other contracts awarded by a Project Promoter for the purposes of carrying out the project, provided that the awarding complies with the applicable rules on public procurement and this Regulation; and
7. costs arising directly from requirements imposed by the project contract for each project.

Eligible expenditures also include indirect expenditures, i.e. all costs that the project promoter and/or partner under the project cannot tie to the project, but which may be indicated and justified under the accounting system as having been incurred directly in relation to the direct eligible costs under the project. Methods for showing indirect costs are specified in Article 8.5(1)(a), (b), (c) and (e) of the Regulation. There is no possibility of showing indirect costs by using the method referred to in Article 8.5(1)(d).

Detailed description of how to calculate indirect costs and all other information on the eligibility of expenditures, procedures to follow in making reports and payments, documenting expenditures, including information on settlements and financial flows in projects involving foreign partners, can be found in the Guidelines for Project Promoters under the “Home Affairs” Programme of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014–2021 (Annex no. 2 to the announcement).

An expenditure being included in the project budget is not considered a confirmation of its eligibility.

Assumptions

When assessing the submitted applications for additional funds, the PO will primarily take into account:

1. mitigating the risk of not achieving Programme/project results - PO will assess, whether not implementing activities proposed within additional funds will have negative impact on achieving goals of the Programme/project,
2. whether the additional activities are in line with the objectives of the project – funds can only be allocated to activities that support the primary objective of the project,
3. impact on programme indicators – in the case of new activities/scale increase of the existing activities, additional points will be awarded to applications that serve to increase the implementation of programme and bilateral indicators,
4. overall disbursements made under the project to date and the degree of substantial performance of the project – additional funds should be awarded to a project whose performance is advanced so as to reduce the risk the funds not being disbursed in full,

An application for additional funds may introduce a new indicator from the list of programme and/or bilateral indicators. Bilateral indicators refer to activities that are performed with the involvement of Norwegian institutions. Due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the following bilateral indicators are at risk of not being met:

1. Number of officers and employees from the Beneficiary State participating in activities implemented in Norway (broken down by gender)
2. Number of employees from the Donor participating in activities implemented in Poland for a minimum of 2 days (broken down by gender)

The Programme Operator suggests that Project Promoters consider additional activities that include one or both of the above indicators.

The list of programme indicators:

Expected objectives and results of the Programme	Indicator
Result 1 Increased effectiveness of Polish law enforcement services	Number of officers trained in crime prevention and conducting investigations (broken down by gender)
	Number of institutions, including Regional Police Forensic Laboratories, with highly specialized equipment
Result 2 Increased effectiveness of international cooperation between law enforcement agencies	Number of foreign institutions involved
	Number of study visits under the project

 

The list of bilateral indicators:

Expected objectives and results of the Programme	Indicator
Result Capacity building to strengthen the rule of law	Number of seminars, training courses and workshops between Polish and Norwegian law enforcement agencies
	Number of officers and employees from the Beneficiary State participating in activities implemented in Norway (broken down by gender)
	Number of employees from the Donor participating in activities implemented in Poland for a minimum of 2 days (broken down by gender)

 

5. impact on the proportion of investment expenditures[1] (60/40) in the Programme – the PO will examine the impact of additional activities on maintaining the proportion within the entire Programme. The proportion within the project may be exceeded if justified by the objectives of the project – the PO will analyze each case individually.

Date of eligibility of expenditures: Expenditures incurred after 30 April 2024 shall not be considered eligible. In accordance with Article 8.2.3, exceptionally, expenditure in respect of which an invoice has been issued and paid by 30 April 2024 and whose object was delivered (in the case of supplies) or performed (in the case of services and construction works) by 31 December 2024 are also deemed to be incurred within the dates of eligibility.

The application for additional funds will be treated as an application for project extension if, according to the request, the project completion date is later than the date resulting from the last approved project fiche. The PO will analyze the project extension risk at the stage of assessing the application.

Deadline for the submission of application forms: by 19^th December 2023 (until 24:00). The deadline for submitting applications is final and will not be extended.

Application form has to be prepared on the form constituting Annex No. 1 to the announcement. The application form must also indicate all the consultants involved in the preparation of the application. The budget within the application form shall be filled in using euro currency.

Applications must be submitted in Polish either:

1. to the e-mail address of EPIC MIA (nmf@copemswia.gov.pl) in the form of scans of signed documents or in the form of electronic documents signed by using a qualified signature of an authorized person. The application must be accompanied by a scan of the document certifying that such person has the capacity to represent the applicant[2]. In the case of scans of signed documents, the editable version of the application must be enclosed as well,

or

2. via the EPUAP platform to the electronic incoming correspondence box of the European Projects Implementation Centre MIA (address: /COPEMSW/SkrytkaESP). The application must bear a qualified signature of an authorised person and must be accompanied by the original or a copy of a document certifying that such a person has the capacity to represent the applicant[3].

The date of submission to the EPIC MIA shall be:

1. date of submission to the incoming correspondence box of the EPIC MIA – in case of sending the application to the ePUAP platform.
2. date of submission to the e-mail address – in case of sending the application by e-mail.

Project assessment:

The assessment of projects is a one-stage process (formal and substantive assessment). Each application is assessed by two Polish experts – one representative of EPIC MIA and one representative of EFD MIA.

Formal part of the assessment (designated in the verification sheet as FORMAL CRITERIA which may be supplemented within 3 working days) provides for a supplementation procedure that lasts 3 working days. Only applications that meet all the formal criteria will be taken into account in the allocation of funds.

Substantive criteria are graded. Each application may be awarded 20 points in total under these criteria. The average score shall be derived from these two assessments made by experts. The PO, taking into consideration the average scores for each application, shall prepare a ranking list to be submitted to the Cooperation Committee.

The final recommendation of projects for financing should be accepted by the Inter-ministerial Team for the Home Affairs European Funds by way of a resolution.

The final ranking list of projects chosen for additional funding will be published on the website www.fundusze.mswia.gov.pl and applicants will receive official letters in this regard.

Formal and substantive assessment sheets with criteria for project selection are included in the Annex to the announcement.

No appeal procedure against the assessment is envisaged.

Approving applications for additional funds

Following the assessment, the PO shall prepare a ranking list indicating the applications for additional funds, ranked in descending order of the number of points awarded. The Programme Operator shall submit the list to the Cooperation Committee (CC). CC will consist of voting members – four representatives of the PO, four representatives of the Norwegian Programme Partners (two from the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and two from the Norwegian Directorate of Civil Protection) as well as the Committee President, and non-voting members.

The final recommendation of projects for additional funds should be accepted by the Inter-ministerial Team for the Home Affairs European Funds by way of a resolution. Moreover, the resolution is a guarantee that applications for additional funds which made their way to the ranking list are in line with the guidelines indicated in the procedure.

The Programme Operator verifies whether the procedure for the selection of applications for additional funds was carried out in accordance with the NMF Regulations 2014-2021 and the procedure for the use of the savings generated in the Programme, and whether the recommendations issued by the Inter-ministerial Team for the Home Affairs European Funds were made in accordance with the principles and objectives of the Programme. After such analysis, the Programme Operator makes a final decision on the allocation of additional funds. The final results of the procedure are communicated by the Programme Operator to all applicants, as well as made public on the PO/EPIC MIA website.

Signing of contracts/agreements

Based on the results of the assessment of the applications for additional funds and the decision of the Programme Operator to award additional funding from the Programme funds, an amendment to the contract/agreement on the selected project(s) is signed.

Annexes:

1. An application form for additional funds;

2. Guidelines for Project Promoters of the “Home Affairs” Programme NFM 2014–2021;

3. Formal and substantive assessment sheet.

Policy papers:

• Regulation on the implementation of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014–2021;
• Agreement on the “Home Affairs” Programme;
• Guidelines on awarding procurement contracts under the EEA financial mechanism for 2014–2021 and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism for 2014–2021;

Handbook of Communication and Visual Identity for EEA funds and Norway Grants 2014–2021.