Follow-up to request for project co-financing
The Find-an-Expert III project’s application for 90% co-funding of €582k was submitted on October 4, 2023, under the European Commission’s JUST-2023-JACC-EJUSTICE call for projects.
On March 11, 2024, the EEEI-led consortium was informed of the following decision: “Despite its merits, the project unfortunately cannot be funded, given the budgetary resources available for the call.” The evaluation sheet attached to the letter reported a combined relevance + quality + impact score of 78[1].
On April 3, 2024, the EEEI submitted a reasoned request to re-evaluate the proposal. This request was answered on August 5, 2024, in the following terms: “The review confirmed that the evaluation procedure was conducted in accordance with the applicable rules. Consequently, the result of the initial evaluation stands and there will be no further evaluation. … <> the call for proposals constitutes a competitive process in which different projects compete for a certain envelope of available funding.<> Although your proposal met the threshold required to be considered for funding, it could not be funded due to the limited budget.”
The EEEI regrets this decision, which betrays European Commission’s relative lack of interest in the follow-up to the Find-An-Expert I and II projects. This decision sends a negative signal to the 80 European volunteers who have been working for 2 years on Find-An-Expert II, which will have produced a directory model and obtained the agreement of 5 Ministries of Justice (BE, PL, LU, IT, RO and probably FR at a later stage) to pilot the Find-An-Expert 3 project.
On behalf of European legal experts, who are involved in the vast majority of court decisions in Europe, the EEEI deplores the delay both in implementing this lengthy process of creating a European register of legal experts in the EU, unlike what has been done for bailiffs and lawyers, and in adopting best practices guaranteeing high-quality European legal expertise. The EEEI invites all its members and supporters to echo the disappointment we have felt after 18 years devoted, through an approach based on shared experience and consensus, to promoting the foundations of quality European judicial expertise.
[1] the minimum combined eligibility threshold is set at 70.
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