A Quick and Easy Way of Contracting

When the European Commission needs to hire experts immediately for projects in partner countries, it turns to one contracting instrument to do so: the Framework Contract Beneficiaries.

“It is easy to use and it is quick,” Agnes Champion, who leads the European Commission’s Supervision Contrats-cadre in Brussels, said of framework contracts.

Champion’s section is responsible for various stages of the procedure, including launching the tender process, signing of contracts, and maintaining the whole framework infrastructure. It deals with any legal modification and functions as a help desk in interpreting the contractual provisions. Its responsibility ends right before contracting at the level of a specific assignment.

Champion revealed that the European Commission awards about 1,200 contracts worth 132 million euros yearly. The framework contract period normally lasts four to five years. Each contract has an implementation duration that cannot exceed two years and would entail experts to work less than 260 days.