Please be reminded that in line with § 16 of the General Rules of Procurement by Beneficiaries within the PBU Projects (Annex X to the Programme Manual-Part 1), hereinafter referred to as General Rules, relevant for the Belarusian beneficiaries and Ukrainian non-public beneficiaries, negotiated procedure with a single tender is foreseen for special cases.

In accordance with point a) of § 16 of the General Rules the contracts may be awarded by negotiated procedure with a single tender consulting one offer where, for reasons of extreme urgency brought about by events which the Beneficiaries could not have foreseen and which can in no way be attributed to them, the time limit for the procedures referred to in §§ 11-13 of General Rules cannot be kept. 

Current pandemic crisis and necessity for prompt measures meet the conditions to qualify this situation as the one of extreme urgency, allowing to proceed according to point a) of § 16 of the General Rules when awarding contracts necessary to counter the effects of COVID-19.

Furthermore, already signed contracts may be modified in line with § 8 of General Rules. Modification of contracts, that is necessary to counter the effects of COVID-19 may be proceed in line with point 4 of § 8. Pandemic crisis shall be considered as exceptional and duly justified case, enabling such modification.