Verfahrensangaben

Strengthening Ukraine's EU Alignment in the Rule of Law is a project to assist the government of Ukraine in its efforts to align Ukrainian legislation with the acquis communautaire of the European Union, focusing on the negotiation chapters related to Judiciary and Fundamental Rights (Chapter 23) and Justice, Freedom and Security (Chapter 24) that lie at the heart of the cluster called the Fundamentals of EU Membership. The two chapters deal with the following topics:

- Chapter 23 "Judiciary and Fundamental Rights": Judiciary, fight against corruption, fundamental rights (including?anti-discrimination, the right to a fair trial, amongst others) and the rights of EU citizens (including the right to vote and stand for election to the European Parliament, the right to vote and stand for local elections, the right to settle freely within the EU).

- Chapter 24 "Justice, Freedom and Security": Border control, visas, migration, asylum, police cooperation, fight against organized crime and terrorism, cooperation in the field of drugs, customs cooperation, and judicial cooperation in criminal and civil matters.

The project aims at enhancing the capacities of key actors within the Ukrainian government to steer and implement a cooperative and participative process of the country"s EU alignment in the rule of law.

The implementation partners are the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine (DPMO) as well as the Government Office for Coordination on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration (GOCEEI) located at the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.These two institutions are responsible for the overall coordination and steering of the EU accession process.

At the same time, the project works with the key line ministries responsible for the implementation of Chapters 23 and 24. In particular, since the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will be leading on these chapters, a close cooperation has been established with the Deputy Minister for European Integration of the MoJ. The MoJ will be the main cooperation partner for any concrete work on legal approximation in the field of rule of law, i.e., chapters 23 and 24, but not the only one. Hence, the primeray beneficiary of this assignment will be the MoJ.

The above-mentioned government bodies are responsible for the coordination and implementation of the EU accession process but suffer from lacks of resources with the necessary expertise regarding the overall negotiation process as well as the concrete legal approximation work. With the aim to support these bodies providing the relevant advisory services for the up-coming processes and tasks, the project "Strengthening Ukraine's EU Alignment in the Rule of Law" works in the following three action areas:

- "Expertise": An Expert Platform pooling expertise on the most relevant clusters and chapters of the acquis for the rule of law will be established. The aim is to bring together renowned Ukrainian and international legal experts providing hands-on and needs-based but structured capacity building to those actors of DPMO, GOCEEI, Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and related stakeholders concerned with the implementation of Chapters 23 and 24. Besides such a coaching or mentoring function, the platform is envisaged to carry out capacity development activities such as training courses, seminars and workshops as complementary measures, taking account of limitations in human resources the Ukrainian government currently has.

- "Experience": Facilitation of experience exchange provided specifically to DPMO and GOCEEI in the areas of strategic planning and coordination of the accession process, with a specific focus on topics related to the rule of law and promoting legitimate governance structures.

- "Exchange": Fostering high-level political exchange and multi-stakeholder dialogue at international and national level.

The project in the context of which the tender is being held supports Ukraine's EU-alignment in the rule of law and in particular the alignment to the core chapters of the acquis communautaire regarding the fundamentals of the EU Membership compiled in the chapters 23 (Judiciary and Fundamentals) and 24 (Justice, Security and Freedom). To this end, the project aims to provide the necessary expertise and capacity building for relevant key stakeholders in the accession process with focus on the chapters mentioned above. The approach of the project refers to three action areas: "Expertise", "Experience" and "Exchange".

The services which are put out to tender belong to the action area "Expertise". An Expert Platform as a flexible and adaptable structure will be established to mobilise the knowledge of EU and Ukrainian renowned legal experts and researchers for the benefit of the Ukrainian key stakeholders responsible for the preparation of an effective EU-alignment and the negotiation process.

The subject of the tender represents the core of the Expert Platform: three pools of short-term experts are expected to be established and managed by the contractor. One short-term pool of experts with international experience (STEP) consists of 10-20 international legal short-term experts (350 working days), one STEP of experts with national experience also consists of 10-20 national legal short-term experts (350 working days) and the third STEP includes translators for English-Ukrainian-English (80 working days). As the legal short-term experts shall provide measures for capacity development as well as strategic and legal advice in the following thematic areas of the chapters 23 and 24 with regard to the rule of law, the contractor is committed to identify short-term experts with relevant expertise in anti-corruption, fundamental rights, criminal law and law enforcement with focus on organised crime as well as EU law as such.

The experts shall be identified and contracted based on Terms of Reference (ToR) for each expert's assignment which are elaborated by the project with the support of the contractor, following the needs-oriented demand of the Ukrainian partners. The contracting of the appropriate short-term experts is expected to follow a defined number of working days after the submission of the ToR to the contractor.

Depending on the concrete support the short-term experts should provide, the contractor is responsible for the creation of tandems, consisting of internationally and nationally experienced short-term experts working together with key stakeholders on defined reform projects incl. strategic documents. The contractor is also monitoring the work results of the expert"s tandems.

In addition, the contractor is expected to organize hands-on trainings in different formats to improve the skills of Ukrainian officials, facilitating effective reform implementation with regards to specific topics of chapters 23 and 24. These trainings will be conducted by the short-term experts of the expert pools.

Besides the management of the three short term expert pools, it is expected that the contractor facilitates an active exchange and networking among the experts of the STEPs. The information flow among the experts and to the responsible project staff shall be ensured and a smooth cooperation with the project staff as well. Capacity building measures will be organized by the contractor and carried out by the short-term experts of the STEPs.

The contractor shall contract a Coordinator of the Expert Platform with responsibility for the overall management of the short-term expert pools (130 working days), supported by an administrative and technical backstopping structure. The Coordinator of the Expert Platform will ensure the smooth cooperation and the fulfilment of all contractual obligations such as monitoring, reporting, etc.

GIZ may optionally commission contract amendments and/or increases based on the criteria in the tender documents to the successful bidder of this tender. For details, please see the terms of reference.

The tender is also suitable for SMEs. For technical reasons, "no" was selected above.

According to Article 160, Section 3 of the German Act Against Restraint of Competition (GWB), application for review is not permissible insofar as
1. the applicant has identified the claimed infringement of the procurement rules before submitting the application for review and has not submitted a complaint to the contracting authority within a period of 10 calendar days; the expiry of the period pursuant to Article 134, Section 2 remains unaffected,
2. complaints of infringements of procurement rules that are evident in the tender notice are not submitted to the contracting authority at the latest by the expiry of the deadline for the application or by the deadline for the submission of bids, specified in the tender notice.
3. complaints of infringements of procurement rules that first become evident in the tender documents are not submitted to the contracting authority at the latest by the expiry of the deadline for application or by the deadline for the submission of bids,
4. more than 15 calendar days have expired since receipt of notification from the contracting authority that it is unwilling to redress the complaint.
Sentence 1 does not apply in the case of an application to determine the invalidity of the contract in accordance with Article 135, Section 1 (2). Article 134, Section 1, Sentence 2 remains unaffected.

All communication takes place in English via communication tool in the project area of the procurement portal.