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    A microenterprise, a small or medium-sized enterprise (business) as defined in EU Recommendation 2003/361. To qualify as an SME for EU funding, an enterprise must meet certain conditions, including (a) fewer than 250 employees and (b) an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million. These ceilings apply only to the figures for individual companies.

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Call key data

Call for proposals for action grants for promoting stable debt advice for promoting stable debt advice services

Funding Program

Single Market Programme

Call number

SMP-CONS-2024-DA

deadlines

Opening
26.03.2024

Deadline
06.06.2024 17:00

Call budget

€ 1,000,000.00

Estimated EU contribution per project

€ 120,000.00

Link to the call

ec.europa.eu

Link to the submission

ec.europa.eu

Call content

short description

This call for proposals implements the Single Market Programme (SMP Consumers) and more specifically Action 2.1 of the 2023-2024 SMP Work Programme for "Calls for proposals for action grants to provide financial contributions to organisations representing consumer interests in Members States or offering assistance to consumers in Member States".

Call objectives

Applicants must outline specific activities in their proposals aimed at achieving one or more of the following consumer-focused objectives in the Member State where the applicant operates:

  • Establish physical and/or virtual places dedicated to providing consumers with debt advice, enhancing service reach and convenience.
  • Boost the accessibility of debt advice services towards consumers by hosting engaging meetings, events, and other initiatives to raise awareness and actively involve consumers.
  • Develop consumer-centric networks with integrated reference points of debt advice experts, facilitating direct links and swift redirection of consumers to tailored guidance, to ensure immediate access to expert advice for those facing financial difficulties, enhancing consumer support.
  • Enhance the operational efficiency of existing structures offering debt advice, directly improving service quality and availability for consumers.
  • Implement capacity-building initiatives including comprehensive staff training to foster knowledge exchange among debt advisors with the purpose of enhancing the support provided to consumers.

Each proposal must articulate the specific benefits it will bring to consumers within the targeted Member State, highlighting the importance of ensuring stable, ongoing access to high-quality debt advice services.

Debt advisory services will support consumers in facing financial difficulties and guide them to repay, as far as possible, their outstanding debts. It is crucial that consumers maintain a decent level of life and preserve their dignity.

Debt advisory services will offer to consumers personalised and independent assistance including legal counselling, money and debt management as well as social and psychological assistance. The assistance should be provided by professional operators which are not creditors, credit intermediaries, credit purchasers nor credit servicers, and are independent from them.

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Expected effects and impacts

The proposed activities outlined are expected to significantly boost the accessibility and quality of debt advice services for consumers in the EU Member States. These enhancements are expected to arise from the creation or reinforcement of infrastructures dedicated to offering comprehensive debt advice to consumers. The aim of the proposed activities is to ensure that consumers in need of guidance on managing debt have access to services that are both high in quality and tailored to their individual needs.

Expected results

In their proposal, applicants must comprehensively list and describe their proposed actions, initiatives, and activities within their proposals, providing detailed explanations on how these efforts will directly contribute to achieving the specified objectives. It is crucial to outline the management and execution plans for each proposed action, initiative, or activity, ensuring that descriptions are both detailed and precise, with a clear focus on tangible outcomes for consumers.

Applicants should base their proposed activities on the analysis of the state of play providing information and reliable data on the adequacy of existing debt advice services, identifying gaps in service provision or areas where quality can be enhanced. The analysis of the state of play shall include for example: projections on the number of consumers who will benefit from the enhanced services, as well as the expected qualitative improvements in the provision of debt advice.

The applicant must provide a clear picture of how the proposed action will contribute to improving the accessibility and reliability of debt advice for consumers, thereby offering significant added value in the respective Member State.

In addition to outlining the current landscape of debt advice services, proposals must detail how the project intends to address identified shortcomings and improve upon the existing framework.

Proposals shall clearly demonstrate the potential quantitative and qualitative impacts of the newly created or reinforced structures, ensuring that the improvements are substantial and measurable.

By focusing on these aspects, each proposal will underline a tailored strategy to significantly elevate the level and quality of debt advice services, making them more accessible and beneficial to consumers in the Member State.

The scope of eligible actions, initiatives, and activities can include, but is not limited to (non-exhaustive list):

  • Establishment of access points: Creating accessible physical locations and/or leveraging digital platforms (e.g., chat services) to offer consumer-oriented debt advice. These access points should be designed to provide easy, user-friendly and direct access for consumers seeking assistance with debt management.
  • Consumer engagement and education: Organizing events, meetings, and campaigns to raise awareness towards consumers about debt advice services. This includes efforts aimed at engaging consumers, informing them about managing debt and promoting the availability of debt advice services.
  • Collaboration, reference points and best practices: Initiating and supporting the development of experts’ networks among current and prospective debt advisors to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and best practices. This includes establishing reference points within these networks for the swift redirection of consumers to appropriate debt advisory services.
  • Research and action plans: Supporting research projects and action plans that aim to establish or strengthen the infrastructure for providing debt advice services. This includes creating robust, stable frameworks that ensure the continuity and reliability of these services for consumers.
  • Continuity and stability: Implementing measures to secure the ongoing availability and stability of debt advice services, ensuring that consumers can consistently rely on these essential supports.
  • Capacity building and training: Enhance the skills of current staff and train new debt advisors. Focus on improving the efficacy and reach of debt advice services, with measures to equip advisors with the knowledge and tools needed to better serve consumers on a stable basis.

The following actions, initiatives, and activities are considered to have particular significant relevance for the purpose of this call:

  • Cross-border cooperation and exchange of best practices between debt-advisory centres established in different EU Member States.
  • Facilitating creation of new debt advice structures in regions where such structure are not existing.
  • Providing debt advice services to particularly vulnerable consumers

When explaining the relevance of their proposed project the applicants shall explain how the proposed project builds up on previous projects (if any) that were funded by public funds or sources. In that context applicants shall explain what the added value of the proposed project would be.

The proposed activities shall bring benefit to the consumers of the same country where the applicant(s) is(are) established. The proposed cross-border activities will be considered as added value.

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Eligibility Criteria

Regions / countries for funding

EU Member States, Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT)
Armenia (Հայաստան), Georgia (საქართველო), Iceland (Ísland), Liechtenstein

eligible entities

Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs)

Mandatory partnership

No

Project Partnership

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must: 

  • be legal entities (public or private bodies)
    • public bodies or
    • private non-profit bodies such as NGOs, charities, consumer associations
  • be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
    • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
    • non-EU countries: listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Single Market Programme (list of participating countries)

Specific cases:

Natural persons — Natural persons are NOT eligible.

International organisations — International organisations are not eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.

Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons. 

EU bodies — EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) can NOT be part of the consortium.

Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’ . Please note that if the action will be implemented by the members, they should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible). 

Countries currently negotiating association agreements — Beneficiaries from countries with ongoing negotiations (see above) may participate in the call and can sign grants if the negotiations are concluded before grant signature (with retroactive effect, if provided in the agreement).

other eligibility criteria

Proposals may be submitted by a single applicant as well as by a consortium. In case of a multi-beneficiary grant - Consortium composition: each of the entities within the consortium has to be eligible as per conditions above.

All consortium members must originate from the same eligible country.

Applicants may submit maximum two (2) proposals for different projects under the same call (and be awarded funding for them). Applicants may participate in maximum two (2) different proposals.

If there are more than 2 (two) proposals submitted in which the same applicant participates, only 2 (two) applications will be accepted and evaluated; the applicants will be asked to withdraw the others (or they will be rejected).

In addition, if there are several proposals for very similar projects, only 1 (one) application will be accepted and evaluated; the applicants will be asked to withdraw the others (or they will be rejected).

Financial support to third parties is not allowed.

Additional information

Topics

Competitiveness of Enterprises, Employment/Labour Market, SME & entrepreneurship

Relevance for EU Macro-Region

EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region

UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)

project duration

24 months

Additional Information

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.

Proposals (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Submission System ( NOT the documents available on the Topic page — they are only for information).

Proposals must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:

  • Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries and affiliated entities) and the summarised budget for the project (to be filled in directly online)
  • Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the project (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)
  • mandatory annexes and supporting documents (templates available to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded):
    • detailed budget table

Your application must be readable, accessible and printable. Proposals are limited to maximum 70 pages (Part B). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages.

Call documents

Call document SMP-CONS-2024-DACall document SMP-CONS-2024-DA(843kB)

Contact

SMP-CONS
EISMEA-CONS-grants@ec.europa.eu
Website

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