According to Article 171 of the Financial Regulation and the Invitation to Apply (section 2), the Contracting authority may cancel the selection procedure up until the signature of the contract, without the applicants being entitled to claim any compensation. This decision must be substantiated and the applicants must be notified.
The text of the call (section 1 and 2.1) followed the rules and provisions contained in the .eu legal framework, namely Regulation (EU) 2019/517 and Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/1083 supplementing Regulation (EU) 2019/517 by establishing the eligibility and selection criteria and the procedure for the designation of the Registry of the.eu top-level domain name.
According to Article 2 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/1083, the activities of the .eu Registry shall be carried out by a not-for-profit organisation, formed in accordance with the law of a Member State, with its registered office, central administration and principal place of business within the territory of the Union. Where a consortium of firms or a group of contractors sets up the not-for-profit organisation, each entity forming part of such consortium or group shall have its registered office, central administration and principal place of business within the Union.
However, the Call (Section 2.2) contained a clause, based on the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, informing UK applicants that they were eligible to participate in the selection procedure.
This clause was inserted during the transition period (1 February – 31 December 2020) on the basis of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, during which EU law still applied in the United Kingdom.
However, Articles 137 and 138 of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement do not apply as they refer to the Union programmes and activities committed under the Multiannual Financial Framework for the years 2014-2020 ("MFF 2014-2020"), while the legal basis of the Call is not linked to any programme under the MFF 2014-2020 and the Call does not implement any programme or activity under MFF 2014-2020.
Consequently, there is no valid reason to provide for an exception from Article 2 of the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/1083, which limits the eligibility to entities established in Member States.
The Contracting authority acknowledges that, given the considerations above, the inclusion of the clause for applicants established in the United Kingdom in the Call was an error.
For this reason, and in accordance with the principle of transparency, the Contracting authority has decided to cancel the current procedure and inform all the applicants.