The European Parliament will conclude a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding with each national Parliament confirming its participation in the joint procurement. The text of each Memorandum of Understanding will be identical. You will find a machine-translated version of the Memorandum of Understanding in the official language(s) of your country for information purposes on the secured platform.

The Memorandum of Understanding defines the scope of the cooperation, nominates contact persons and sets the means of cooperation in the contract implementation phase. lt also provides the European Parliament power of attorney to publish the call for tenders in the Official Journal of the European Union on behalf of each participating national Parliament. Finally, national Parliaments will communicate via the Memorandum of Understanding their estimated use of the planned framework contract, expressed in euros. This estimate does not put any obligation on the national Parliament to use the contract.

ln February, 1 will return to you for the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, finalised by then and in line with your comments. For this final step, we will provide you with an officially translated version of the Memorandum of Understanding. The signed English version of the Memorandum of Understanding will however remain the authentic version.

The deadline for signing the Memorandum of Understanding will be set in the February 2024 communication. P/ease note that it wi/1 not be possib/e to join this tendering procedure after the deadline for signing the Memorandum of Understanding.

The European Parliament will act as the Lead Contracting Authority. As such, my services will take care of the administrative steps, including the publication of the call for tenders; replying to any questions arising in the tendering phase; evaluation of bids; and finally concluding a single framework contract for Lot 1 and up to three framework contracts for Lot

• 2. Please see the 'Questions and Answers' document in Annex IV regarding the underlyingreasons for the.choices made for Lot 1 and 2. ln this phase, your active participation will notbe necessary.

The framework contracts are planned to be concluded• during summer 2024, with eachparticipating Parliament as a Contracting Authority. Consequently, each national Parliamentparticipating in the tender will be able to issue order forms and settle invoices autonomously.No financial transfers would be necessary between the European Parliament and nationalParliaments. The national Parliaments will also have the flexibility to continuously adapt theirconsumption of the framework contract to their actual needs without financial consequences.

A joint procurement between national Parliaments and the European Parliament is a step upin cooperation between our respective services. Enhanced cooperation is intended to provideeffective and efficient support to core parliamentary services, build lasting technical-levelcooperation between our institutions and ultimately offers access to a European, high qualityconferencing solution as well as economies of scale. With its feasibility proven, the methodcould be applicable in any other business area in the future. We therefore kindly request yourcareful consideration and support for the above steps.

lf you have any further questions, my services are at your disposal for online meetings or in-person visits. The contact person of the European Parliament is Ms Agnieszka KURANT(Phone +32.2.284.4815, Email: agnieszka.kurant@europarl.europa.eu), with Mr ZoltánSZÉLES (Phone +32.2.283.2829, Email: zoltan.szeles@europarl.europa.eu) to coverprocurement-r lated and contractual questions.

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