Procurement description
1. Purpose of contract
The European Labour Authority (ELA) is a Union body established by Regulation (EU) 2019/1149. Its aim is to ensure that EU rules on labour mobility and social security coordination are enforced in a fair, simple and effective way and to make it easier for citizens and businesses to reap the benefits of the internal market. Amongst others, ELA is committed to contributing to improving labour mobility information provision and access to dedicated services, including identifying existing gaps and developing solutions to mitigate them, in cooperation with its EU-level and national stakeholders.
Easily accessible, unambiguous, and up-to-date information on the rules applicable in posting of workers situations and on working conditions in other Member States is found to be needed but currently not sufficiently provided by the existing entities. Likewise, not structurally provided, but sought after, is information on and support with the administrative rules and procedures to be followed by mobile workers and their employers - in particular in specific or new types of labour mobility.
Against this background, with this call for tender, ELA wishes to explore the feasibility of setting up and operating an information help desk which would offer individuals, workers, employers, and social partners the possibility to address individual questions to a competent consultant through a dedicated phone and/or personal chat or e-mail service. The service would cover both EU legislation and national regulations and measures from EU and EEA countries as well as Switzerland.
An information help desk for questions relating to labour mobility topics (posting of workers and free movement) within the European Union, the European Economic Area and Switzerland should tentatively cover the following thematic aspects:
- labour law (e.g. minimum (sectoral) wages, collective bargaining agreements, working time and rest periods, holidays, employment contracts, collective labour law)
- rights and entitlements for workers and employers
- legal prerequisites for labour mobility (issues referring to work contract and legal aspects of employment, subcontracting)
- national legal bases for posting of self-employed persons, service contractors, temporary workers, frontier workers, seasonal workers etc.
- notification requirements / declaration obligations on national portals
- social security requirements (for all types of labour mobility, portable document A1, benefits under paritarian institutions)
- specific rules for posting of third country nationals
- specific rules for temporary workers
- specific rules for mobile seasonal workers and their employers
- specific rules for workers and employers in virtual labour (cross-border telework, platform work)
- sanctions
- qualifications (regulated professions, occupational qualifications / certificates)
- specific rules in construction
- specific rules in road transport
- occupational health and safety
- necessary documents.
The tasks preliminarily foreseen under the contract are:
- Assessing whether ELA has the mandate to finance and staff, procure, establish, and operate a help desk with live human interaction.
- Generating a service profile for the help desk, collecting customer requirements, defining use cases.
- Examining the legal implications connected to advising on labour mobility including questions of liability for ELA as the help desk provider, liability for the institutions responsible for providing information for the help desk, and potentially other involved actors.
- Analysing which and how reliable and up-to-date information about labour mobility can continuously flow from the Member States and relevant stakeholders to the help desk advisors and how this knowledge can be managed on a permanent basis.
- Developing different operating models for the help desk taking into consideration user and stakeholder needs as well as resource requirements (e. g. thematic categories within labour mobility, thematic depths, target group, languages, operating hours, contact means).
- Defining which resources (financial, technical, and human) are needed to build-up and maintain an in-person help desk service which provides reliable and up-to-date information to advice-seekers (individuals, workers, employers, social partners).
- Deriving suggestions for next steps to develop and implement the help desk, including timeline and expected effort needed to realise the steps (budget and human resources).
- Reporting.
- Project management and quality assurance.
2. Price
The maximum amount for this contract is EUR 130,000. The estimated performance period of the resulting direct contract is 8 months (contract not renewable).
3. Description, indicative time schedule and contact point
Economic operators interested in the subject of this publicity are asked to note that this is not a call for tenders. It is a publication to announce ELA’s intention to launch a negotiated procedure for the award of a middle-value contract and allow interested economic operators to express their interest.
The indicative time schedule for launching the negotiated procedure is February 2024. Interested economic operators can express their interest to participate in this negotiated procedure until 29 January 2024 at 12:00 CET in writing to ela-procurement@ela.europa.eu. The indicative date to sign the contract is April 2024.
This ex-ante publicity has an indicative value and is in no way binding on ELA. ELA may decide not to launch the procurement procedure without candidates being entitled to claim any compensation.
4. Who will be invited to submit a tender?
Only invited candidates having received an invitation to tender from ELA may participate in the planned procedure.
Consequently, any tender received from a legal or natural person not invited to tender, even if in a consortium with an invited candidate, will be rejected. Therefore, if it is the case, please express your interest as a consortium. As an alternative, you may freely use subcontracting when submitting an offer.
If you have expressed interest in this publicity and you have access to the procurement, you will be invited to submit a tender. ELA reserves the right to invite also other economic operators than those having expressed interest following this ex-ante publicity.
Invited candidates can submit a joint tender with other economic operators only if they have expressed interest in the planned procedure as a consortium.
Subcontracting is permitted.
5. Protection of personal data
If processing a tender involves the recording and processing of personal data (such as name, address and CV), this data will be processed pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 2018/1725. Unless indicated otherwise, any personal data will be processed solely for evaluation purposes under the negotiated procedure by the Executive Director of ELA. Details concerning the processing of personal data are available in the privacy statement https://www.ela.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2022-03/ela-ps-procurement-0003.pdf . The tenderer's personal data may be registered in the Early Detection and Exclusion System (EDES) if the tenderer is in one of the situations mentioned in Article 136 of the Financial Regulation. For more information, see the privacy statement.
The tenderer's personal data may be registered in the Early Detection and Exclusion System (EDES) if the tenderer is in one of the situations mentioned in Article 136 of the Financial Regulation. For more information, see the privacy statement. For more information, see the Privacy Statement on http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/management/protecting/protect_en.cfm