Through the JITs Funding Programme, Eurojust reimburses costs incurred by JIT parties related to travel, accommodation, translation, interpretation, specialist expertise, transfer of items, purchase of low-value IT/electronic equipment, and hire of IT/electronic equipment. Upon request, indirect costs are also reimbursed, representing a flat rate of 7% of the total direct costs.

No. The JIT agreement has to be duly signed by all parties before any Application may be submitted.

Yes. Funding may be requested after the expiry of the JIT, if it is sought for the purposes of the evaluation of the JIT or in relation to investigative or judicial procedures linked to the JIT and its investigation. A copy of the signed JIT agreement shall be submitted together with the Application.

No. Only one Application for the same JIT shall be submitted within an open Call for proposals.

In case of urgent actions funded outside the Call for proposals, only one Application shall be submitted on behalf of a JIT for any given fourteen-day action period.

One Application shall reflect the financial needs of all JIT parties. Therefore, it is important that all JIT parties communicate their funding needs to the person who will then submit the Application on behalf of the JIT.

The Application shall be submitted by a JIT leader or a JIT member of an EU Member State. The JIT leader may delegate the submission of an Application to another person with relevant professional competency (i.e. JIT National Expert, Eurojust College Member, or Europol Liaison Officer). For further details, please consult the selection criteria in the applicable terms and conditions.

Any Application for financial assistance must be submitted using Eurojust’s JITs Portal (online tool), accessible from the Eurojust website. It is necessary to first create an account in the JITs Portal.

For funding outside the Call for proposals (for urgent actions), the fully completed Application shall be submitted by email, using the official Application Form and related Budget Estimate as published on the Eurojust website. For further details, please see questions 51, 52 and 53.

You may apply for a maximum of EUR 50,000 per Application within the standard funding scheme.

For Applications within the funding scheme outside the Call for proposals (for urgent actions), the ceiling is EUR 8,000.

An Application is submitted on behalf of the JIT, therefore the above-mentioned ceilings apply to one Application per JIT.

Applications under the regular funding scheme may be submitted only within an open Call for proposals. The Calls are published on the Eurojust website, alongside the annual planning (time slots) of the Calls.

Funding outside the Call for proposals (for urgent actions) may be requested anytime during the year, with the exception being days when Eurojust is closed (these dates are indicated in the Invitation).

It is not a formal requirement to complete the Application in the English language. However, English is preferred in order to facilitate the evaluation procedure.

No. After the Application is submitted in the JITs Portal, it is not accessible anymore. However, a Word version of the Application may be exported at any time before the Application is submitted; and a PDF version may be saved just after the submission button has been clicked (please ensure that pop-up windows are not blocked by your computer).

If you do not manage to save the Application yourself, please contact JITs Network Secretariat at JITs@eurojust.europa.eu and request a copy.

Yes, you need to provide all the important details related to the JIT and provide any new information related to developments in the investigation and funding request in every new Application. Please keep in mind that within each Call for proposals different Evaluation Committees evaluate each Application separately; therefore, it is important that all up-to-date information is available.

An Application may be rejected if it is not admissible, not eligible, or if it does not meet the selection criteria – please refer to the admissibility, eligibility and selection criteria in the applicable terms and conditions and Invitation.

An Application submitted within the Call for proposals may also be rejected at evaluation stage if it does not qualify, i.e. the Application receives low scores for the award criteria “complexity of the JIT” and/or “purpose of the actions and justification of estimates”. Please make sure that you provide enough details in the Application to permit an accurate evaluation.

An Application submitted outside the Call for proposals (for urgent actions) may also be rejected in the following situations: the urgency of planned actions is not justified; there are no sufficient reasons explaining why funding could not be requested through the standard funding scheme; and/or the application is submitted less than five working days before the start of the action and this early start is not justified. For requests for urgent funding, it is very important that the urgency of the action(s) is justified, so enough information should be provided for the evaluators to make an informed decision.

Firstly, make sure that the Application meets the admissibility, eligibility and selection criteria. Secondly, provide relevant information on the JIT and funding request, keeping in mind the evaluation criteria. Please follow the instructions in section 1.10 of the Application in the JITs Portal. As a lesson learned from other JITs: please take the time to fill in the application, considering that it may take up to at least one hour of work on the first occasions. In addition, problems may happen (i.e. IT failures, missing information, etc.), so where possible it is recommended to avoid sending your Application on the last day as, if something should then go wrong we will not be in a position to help you. Make sure you have sufficient time to prepare and submit your Application, in particular if you are applying for the first time.

For Applications submitted outside the Call for proposals (for urgent actions), make sure that the planned activities are urgent in accordance with conditions specified in the Invitation and the urgency is duly explained (based on operational circumstances), and that you justify why you cannot apply for funding within the Call for proposals.

You can access the JITs Portal via the JITs funding page on the Eurojust website. You will be requested to create an account before you can proceed further. The account has to be validated by the JITs Network Secretariat first (should you create an account during Eurojust official holidays, it may take some days before you receive confirmation of validation), so allow enough time for this approval before any upcoming deadlines. Once you have an active account, you can complete and submit the Application during an open Call for proposals. If you experience a problem with the Portal, please contact the JITs Network Secretariat at JITS@eurojust.europa.eu.

Check first that you are submitting your Application during an open Call for proposals, as the JITs Portal does not allow for submission of Applications if a Call is not published (opened). You can check the announcements on the Eurojust website to find these dates. Furthermore, you will receive a warning message in the Portal if you try to submit the Application outside an open Call for proposals.

If the problems continue, please contact the JITs Network Secretariat at JITS@eurojust.europa.eu.

You are required to provide:

• A signed JIT agreement or JIT agreement extension (if such documents have not yet been provided to Eurojust together with the first/previous Application of the JIT).
• Bank account details (i.e. IBAN) of at least one of the national authorities involved in the JIT. In cases where the bank account is not yet known to Eurojust (usually when the first Application of the JIT is submitted), it is necessary to submit a completed Financial Identification Form. This template is available on the Eurojust website.

FIF stands for Financial Identification Form; these need to be provided to Eurojust in cases where the bank account (IBAN) of a national authority requesting funding is not yet known to Eurojust. It has to be duly completed (i.e. stamped by a bank or accompanied by a most recent bank statement) and submitted to Eurojust; either via the JITs Portal alongside an Application, or by email upon request by Eurojust.

No. Any Application already submitted via the JITs Portal is no longer accessible in the Portal and therefore cannot be modified. If you wish to modify your Application, you would need to withdraw the original Application, and then submit a new one. However, if you wish to make only very minor changes then you can contact the JITs Network Secretariat who will assess if this change is minor and may carry out the changes on your behalf. The Secretariat can also advise to withdraw the Application and start again (in case the changes seem to be major).

Applications submitted outside the Call for proposals (for urgent actions) shall not be modified as they are evaluated within a very short timeframe; thus the original text will be taken into consideration by the Evaluation Committee once the Application is submitted. However, if you still need to make some changes, please contact the JITs Network Secretariat for further advice at JITS@eurojust.europa.eu.

Decisions are communicated to all applicants on the same day, i.e. the day which is published on the Eurojust website for the respective Call for proposals. Decisions are communicated by email (the Application’s status is also visible in the JITs Portal).

Decisions on Applications submitted outside the Call for proposals (for urgent actions) are also communicated by email; but on these occasions, by the deadline of the day indicated within the acknowledgment email (usually 5 working days after submission of the Application).

The grant may be used only for activities foreseen in the Application. However, certain modifications of the planned actions are possible, upon a justification of the operational need for such deviations (e.g., translation to/from different language(s) than the one(s) foreseen in the application, travel to different destination(s) than the one(s) foreseen in the application, etc.). This justification will be assessed by the JITs Network Secretariat, and the eligibility of respective costs will be confirmed. For more details, please follow the corresponding section in the applicable terms and conditions.

Ideally, the JIT parties come to an agreement on how the costs are shared. If one party does not foresee any costs, the other party(ies) can spend the entire grant. If all parties have costs higher than the grant, the parties need to agree on a split of costs at the reimbursement stage. The agreement on the split of costs is initiated by the JITs Network Secretariat, who will liaise with claiming JIT parties to come to an agreed outcome in order to be able to release the payments. Alternatively, you can inform the JITs Network Secretariat when submitting your claim as to how you would like to split the reimbursement of costs between all JIT parties.

If the grant is not fully spent, the funds are returned to the budget of Eurojust. The funds may be “re-used” for new Applications submitted under upcoming Calls for proposals. Although there are no direct consequences for the JIT if the grant is not fully spent, full consumption of the grant is still greatly encouraged.

The action period is a period of 3 months, during which the planned actions of the JIT - for which you requested a grant - shall take place. This period is indicated in the published Call for proposals and reflected in the Award Decision sent to JIT applicants. The 3-month action period may be extended for another 3 months based on a written request to the JITs Network Secretariat.

The action period under the funding scheme without a Call for proposals (for urgent actions) is a period of 14 calendar days, during which the planned actions of the JIT shall take place. The action period cannot be extended.

No. Funding within the standard funding scheme cannot be awarded for overlapping action periods. The condition is that JITs are not allowed to be awarded a grant in two consecutive Calls. This means that you can apply for funding in any given Call for proposals; but you may only apply again in the Call which does not immediately follow (e.g. Applications can be submitted in Call 1 and 3, and not in Call 1 and 2). If you apply/receive a grant every second time slot of the year (i.e. Call 1, 3, 5, 7), you ensure funding for the entire year without any gaps in action periods.

Similar conditions apply to extensions of the action period – if the action period is extended, a new Application cannot be submitted for the same or overlapping action period (e.g. if the action period for Call 1 is extended and covers the action period of Call 3, you can apply again in Call 5).

For a combination of standard and urgent funding see question 56.

Not really. In principle, only costs incurred within the action period are eligible for reimbursement. However, costs related to travel and accommodation incurred partially outside (before or after) the action period might be eligible/accepted, based on operational justification. For all other cost categories where costs are partially carried out within a relevant action period, those costs outside the action period are not eligible and a pro-rata adjustment will be applied. Costs related to all cost categories which are incurred entirely before (or after) the given action period will not be accepted for reimbursement.

If you do not carry out your actions as planned, you can either:

• Extend the action period for your current grant (for further details on extension, please see questions 49 and 50); or
• Submit a new Application for similar activities within the upcoming action period in the next possible Call for proposals.

You may use the awarded grant freely between the awarded cost categories. However, the actions and related costs should correspond to those foreseen in the Application submitted, or comply with accepted minor exceptions (see question 21). It is advisable to consult the JITs Network Secretariat in such situations at JITS@eurojust.europa.eu.

Yes, you can apply for funding as often as you want. However, please note that you are not allowed to submit Applications in consecutive Calls. You can apply for funding every second Call (for further details please see the question 24). This is to exclude situations of double funding, as the action periods of consecutive Calls overlap.

For a combination of standard and urgent funding see question 56.

As long as you can justify this modification and the costs remain within the total awarded amount, it is possible that more persons can participate in the foreseen action(s). You can explain the situation in the Reimbursement Claim Form, within the Report on Funded Actions. The JITs Network Secretariat can then use this to demonstrate the justification for accepting your cost claims.

Yes, you can. Two participants per country to Eurojust coordination meetings are reimbursed from a different Eurojust budget. If you see a need to have more participants to such meetings, you can apply for funding of the additional participants via JITs funding. However, it is necessary to explain in the Application why more than two persons per country are required to attend the meeting. Reimbursement of those additional participants will be done through the JITs funding reimbursement process based on its applicable rules.

Yes, funding can be requested for the purposes of the evaluation of a JIT. This can be either in the situation when the JIT is about to expire, or when it has already expired. Evaluation meetings may take place at Eurojust, or in a state that is one of the JIT parties. If the meeting takes place at Eurojust, please check with your respective National Desk if they are organising the evaluation to take place during a coordination meeting; in these cases, different rules apply. If it is an evaluation meeting being held at Eurojust (not during a coordination meeting) or in another state, general application and reimbursement rules apply, i.e. requested funding must be justified in the Application; and the necessary supporting documents must be provided together with the Reimbursement Claim Form.

If funding is requested after the JIT has expired, please see the reply to question 3.

Yes and no. You may purchase different low-value IT/electronic equipment item than those foreseen in the Application, but you need to explain the operational need for such equipment at the reimbursement stage; the costs may be accepted based on this operational justification. If the equipment item’s purchase value is below EUR 75 or above EUR 1.000 (per piece, excluding VAT), it will be rejected from reimbursement as ineligible.

Once the grant is awarded and the 3-month (or extended 6-month) action period has finished, you have one month to submit your claim(s) for reimbursement. Please complete the Reimbursement Claim Form and send it together with all relevant supporting documents to JITS@eurojust.europa.eu or submit via the JITs Portal (the claims module is currently applicable only for submitting reimbursments related to the standard funding scheme).

The claim will be checked by the JITs Network Secretariat and, if the costs are eligible the respective amount will be reimbursed to the bank account of your home authorities as indicated by yourselves in the claim.

No. Eurojust does not provide pre-financing for JIT grants. The costs need to be first borne by the national authority, and these are then reimbursed by Eurojust.

Most importantly, please remember to collect all supporting documents that can prove that costs were incurred/paid by the national authority(ies) involved in the JIT activities. After the action period ends, you can claim reimbursement of the costs; this shall be done within one month following the end of the action period.

You may submit your claim either by email or online via the Claims Module (part of the JITs Portal):

1. Email submission

   You need to complete the Reimbursement Claim Form, including all annexes (worksheets) for the different categories of costs; and send it by email to the JITs Network Secretariat at JITS@eurojust.europa.eu.

   Your email should include:

   • The completed Reimbursement Claim Form (all worksheets) in Excel format;
   • The scanned, dated and signed Summary Table (the first worksheet of the Reimbursement Claim Form) in PDF format;
   • All relevant supporting documents (such as invoices, flight tickets, etc.). 

2. Online submission (Claims Module)

   You need to create an account in the JITs Portal if you do not have one yet (see question 14). Search for the award that you would like to submit a reimbursement claim for, and to which you will link the costs. Complete all the claim’s sections (including the Report on Funded Actions) and attach all the supporting documents. Please confirm the declaration and submit the claim. For further details about this online tool, or in case of any troubles, please contact the JITs Network Secretariat (at JITS@eurojust.europa.eu.)

Please note that you need to contact JITs Network Secretariat in case you intend to claim costs online via the Claims Module for extended awards.

Please submit reimbursement claims within one month from the end of the action period. You can find the respective deadline in the email communicating the Award Decision, or on the Eurojust website (planning overview).

If you are having difficulties to collect all the supporting documents within the given timeframe, please notify the JITs Network Secretariat in a timely manner and in writing at JITS@eurojust.europa.eu.

Yes you can, but there are certain conditions to be met. If you will not be able to submit the claim within the deadline, please inform the JITs Network Secretariat as soon as possible. Claims submitted after the deadline may be accepted, provided that:

• the award is not yet fully consumed by other JIT party(ies) that have submitted claims within the deadline;
• the financial commitment is not yet closed (de-committed) – please verify the situation with the JITs Network Secretariat;
• you provide a valid justification as to why the claim is submitted after the deadline; such justification is considered valid if it falls beyond your control (e.g. a translation invoice was received late from the translation company).

Please note that VAT is not eligible for reimbursement.

For example, if translation or interpretation costs include VAT, you either claim the costs without VAT; or the VAT will be deducted by the JITs Network Secretariat whilst processing your claim. Please make sure that the VAT rate or VAT amount is clearly indicated on the invoice or in your Reimbursement Claim Form. If VAT costs are not clearly identified in the supporting documents, please indicate in the Reimbursement Claim Form whether or not VAT is included and if so, how much.

An invoice in a currency other than Euro is not a problem. The Reimbursement Claim Form – Annex for “Other costs” includes columns to insert the costs in local currency, the type of currency and exchange rate. For converting the costs in local currency to Euro, please use the currency rate published in the Official Journal of the EU; you will find a link to the Journal under footnote 3 on the worksheet Annex “Other costs”. Please use the exchange rate of the day following the end of the action period (e.g. action period ends on 15 August, use the rate for August; action period ends on 31 December, use the rate for January).

In the Claims Module, the exchange rate has to be indicated and the costs will be converted to Euro.

The Report on Funded Actions is part of the Reimbursement Claim Form (Excel workbook- tab “Annex 1”) or one of the sections of the claim form in the Claims Module. The Report on Funded Actions includes two mandatory questions about the use of the grant. Your feedback on the implementation and added value of the grants is very valuable for the JITs Network Secretariat as it helps to understand the real value of funding (how efficiently EU taxpayers money was spent) and identify any possible funding gaps. There is also an optional section for explaining any deviations; and you can use this part to explain and justify any changes in the planned actions, to assist the JITs Network Secretariat with the evaluation of your claim.

For each claimed cost, you should provide corresponding supporting documents. Below, you will find the list of necessary documents per cost category:

For travel, please provide a flight/train/boat ticket showing:

• the name of the traveller(s);
• destination; and
• dates of travel.

If you travel by car, please provide any possible documents, e.g. fuel receipts.

For accommodation, please provide an invoice stating:

• the name of the accommodated person(s);
• location; and
• dates of stay.

If you claim both travel and accommodation together for one action, it is acceptable to provide just one of the indicated documents as proof, e.g. a flight ticket would be sufficient to also prove the accommodation costs related to the same activity.

For translation and interpretation services, please provide an invoice indicating all necessary details, i.e.:

• the invoiced amount;
• VAT (where applicable);
• the start and end date of the actual services; and
• the languages used.

For transfer of items, please provide an invoice indicating:

• the invoiced amount;
• VAT (where applicable);
• the start and end date of the actual service; and
• a description of the transferred items (if it is permissible to disclose).

For specialist expertise, please provide an invoice stating:

• the invoiced amount;
• VAT (where applicable);
• the start and end date of the actual service; and
• the type of expertise.

For the purchase of low-value IT/electronic equipment, please provide an invoice which includes:

• the invoiced amount;
• VAT (where applicable);
• the type of equipment and its specifications and/or description;
• the number of units and the unit price;
• the date of purchase; and
• eventually, the date of delivery.

For the hire of IT/electronic equipment, please provide an invoice which includes:

• the invoiced amount;
• VAT (where applicable);
• the type of equipment and its specifications and/or description;
• the number of units and the unit price;
• the start and end date of the actual service provided.

For indirect costs, please just choose the relevant option (tick the box whether or not you wish to claim those costs) in the Reimbursement Claim Form or in the Claims Module. No supporting documents are required to be submitted for this cost category.

Each national authority may submit their claims separately. The claim shall be submitted by an official who can confirm the points of (is permitted to sign) the Declaration of Honour included in the Reimbursement Claim Form. It may be the JIT leader, a JIT member, or a person working within the financial department of the claiming national authority.

No. The JITs Network Secretariat will not reimburse individual claims submitted by JIT members. Reimbursement is made exclusively to public institutions, not to private bank accounts.

Costs originally foreseen in the awarded Application can be reimbursed; this applies to all eligible cost categories currently available under the JITs Funding Programme (please see question 1 above).

It depends on how different the actions are. It is possible, for example, to change a destination of the action, or the languages of the translation services employed. Any modifications and relevant circumstances shall be explained in the Report on Funded Actions (part of the Reimbursement Claim Form or online claim form). The modifications are assessed on a case-by-case basis via internal procedure and a decision on eligibility of the actions and related costs is made. Please see also the reply to question 20 above.

The translation/interpretation costs incurred partly outside the action period may be accepted for reimbursement by way of exception based on operational justification, ideally provided in the Report on Funded Actions (part of the Reimbursement Claim Form). If it is not justified or the justification is not accepted, we will reimburse only the part falling within the action period (reducing the costs by pro-rata).

It may also happen that such costs (those partly outside action period) are reimbursed from the previous or consecutive grant awarded to a JIT.

If the translation/interpretation costs are incurred entirely outside the action period, they will not be accepted for reimbursement under the respective grant. However, such costs may be reimbursed under the previous or consecutive grant awarded to a JIT.

No, the invoice can be issued and paid after the end of the action period. What is important is that the services/actions took place within the action period.

The indirect costs are costs which are not directly linked to the implementation of JIT actions, such as costs of maintenance, utilities, costs of communication, etc. They are calculated and reimbursed on flat-rate basis of 7% of the total eligible direct costs (costs incurred under all other given cost categories).

A written request, using the official template, shall be submitted to the JITs Network Secretariat, at least two working days before the end date of the action period as indicated in the Award Decision. For the actual deadlines, please consult the planning published on the Eurojust website.

Please note that the action period for funding outside the Call for proposals (for urgent actions) cannot be extended.

Ideally, the extension is requested by the same person who applied for the JIT funding; however, any representative of the JIT may apply for an extension of the action period. The extension shall be agreed by all JIT parties.

Please note that the action period for funding outside the Call for proposals (for urgent actions) cannot be extended.

The urgent funding scheme (funding outside the Call for proposals) is used to reimburse costs incurred in undertaking JIT activities that have to be performed as soon as is possible due to operational reasons; and that cannot wait for financing under a published Call for proposals. The urgency of the actions needs to be clearly demonstrated in the Application submitted.

You can apply for urgent funding by submitting an Application and Budget Estimate to the JITs Network Secretariat. The Application shall be completed, duly dated, signed and each page initialled. The Budget Estimate shall be completed, and the Summary Table (second worksheet) dated and signed.

An Application for urgent funding may be submitted at any time throughout the year (please note that during the Eurojust public holidays, any applications received will not be processed until the next possible working day of the JITs Network Secretariat), and at least five working days before the start of the actions for which funding is sought. The Application may be submitted less than five working days before the start of the action, provided that you can demonstrate the need for starting the action(s) prior to the signature of the Award Decision.

All the questions related to urgent funding are covered in the questions above (just follow the general questions). Some replies are common for both funding schemes, and some are specific for urgent funding; in this case, please see the replies dedicated to “funding outside the Calls for proposals (for urgent actions).”

There are many differences between these two schemes. The main one is that urgent funding shall be used only for urgent actions of an operational nature that cannot be requested through the regular funding scheme, whereas standard funding may be used for financing of any JIT activities that fall under the scope of the Eurojust standard funding scheme. The application procedure, Application template, length of the action period and maximum possible grant per Application are significantly different for each of the funding schemes.

For further details please see the JITs Funding Guide.

If you are not in a hurry to implement activities within your JIT, and you wish to apply for higher amounts of financial support (up to EUR 50,000), then you should apply under the standard funding scheme. If you need to perform an action quickly (e.g. you need to organise a joint action day or witness hearing at very short notice), then you could make use of the urgent funding scheme.

Yes, you can. Please keep in mind that the same actions cannot be financed twice and the awards for the same actions should not be acumulated. Therefore, if you received funding for certain actions under the standard funding scheme, you shall not apply for funding of the same actions under the urgent funding scheme (for instance, to receive an additional amount of money), unless you explain how the activities differ from those included in the respective previous awarded application.