1. Member States wishing to receive technical support under the instrument shall submit a request for technical support to the Commission, identifying the policy areas and the priorities for support within the scope as set out in Article 5. Such requests shall be submitted by 31 October unless otherwise specified in the additional dedicated calls for requests referred to in paragraph 4 of this Article. The Commission may provide guidance on the main elements to be included in the request for technical support.
2. In order for the reforms pursued by Member States to gather wide support and ownership, Member States wishing to receive technical support under the instrument may consult, where appropriate, relevant stakeholders before requesting technical support, in accordance with national law and practices.
3. Members States may submit a request for technical support in circumstances linked to:
(a)
the implementation of reforms by Member States, undertaken on their own initiative and in accordance with the general objective and specific objectives set out in Articles 3 and 4 respectively;
(b)
the implementation of growth-sustaining and resilience-enhancing reforms in the context of economic governance processes, in particular the country-specific recommendations issued in the context of the European Semester or actions related to the implementation of Union law;
(c)
the implementation of economic adjustment programmes for Member States that receive Union financial assistance under existing instruments, in particular in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 472/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (15) as regards the Member States whose currency is the euro and Council Regulation (EC) No 332/2002 (16) as regards Member States whose currency is not the euro;
(d)
the preparation, amendment and revision of recovery and resilience plans pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2021/241 and the implementation thereof undertaken by Member States.
4. The Commission shall organise additional dedicated calls for requests in response to specific emerging needs of Member States, such as for the submission of requests linked to the circumstances referred to in point (d) of paragraph 3.
5. Taking into account the principles of transparency, equal treatment and sound financial management and further to a dialogue with the Member States, including in the context of the European Semester, the Commission shall analyse the request for support referred to in paragraph 1 based on the urgency, breadth and depth of the challenges identified, support needs in respect of the policy areas concerned, analysis of socioeconomic indicators and institutional and general administrative capacity of the Member States concerned.
Based on that analysis and taking into account the existing actions and measures financed by Union funds or other Union programmes, the Commission and the Member States concerned shall agree on the priority areas for support, the objectives, an indicative timeline, the scope of the support measures to be provided and the estimated global financial contribution for such technical support, which shall be set out in a cooperation and support plan (the ‘cooperation and support plan’).
6. The cooperation and support plan shall identify, separately from other technical support, the measures linked to the recovery and resilience plans for Member States pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2021/241.