Update of the guidance on participation in EU calls with ownership and control restrictions

The European Commission has updated the guidance on participation in EU calls with ownership and control restrictions. The updated guidance is published under the following link.

The update aligns the guidance with the new Financial Regulation 2024/2509 and extends its scope to other EU programmes beyond Digital Europe (DEP), Horizon Europe (HE) and the European Defence Fund (EDF).

The document now provides more detailed information and reflects latest practice in the assessment of ownership structure and control, including relevant criteria, examples of specific situations and the validity period of the assessment.

Further clarifications concern checks of intermediate ownership layers, the involvement of new participants joining ongoing projects and cases of loss of eligibility. The section on the guarantees process has also been expanded, and the procedures for informing the entities concerned have been clarified.

These changes aim to increase legal certainty for applicants and beneficiaries and to facilitate the consistent application of the rules across EU programmes.

Detailed information on the changes introduced can be found in the “Change history” section on page 3 of the document.