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1. Participation in procurement, grant and prize award procedures for actions financed under geographic programmes and under the Civil Society Organisations thematic programme and the Global Challenges thematic programme shall be open to international organisations and to all other legal entities, including civil society organisations, who are nationals of and, in the case of legal persons, who are also effectively established in, the following countries:

(a) Member States, beneficiaries listed in the relevant Annex to the IPA III Regulation and contracting parties to the Agreement on the European Economic Area;

(b) Neighbourhood partner countries and the Russian Federation when the relevant procedure takes place in the context of the programmes referred to in Annex I in which it participates;

(c) developing countries and territories, as included in the list of ODA recipients published by the OECD Development Assistance Committee, which are not members of the G-20 group, and overseas countries and territories;

(d) developing countries, as included in the list of ODA recipients, which are members of the G-20 group, and other countries and territories, when the relevant procedure takes place in the context of an action financed by the Union under the Instrument in which they participate;

(e) countries for which reciprocal access to external funding is established by the Commission; that access may be granted, for a limited period of at least one year, whenever a country grants eligibility on equal terms to entities from the Union and from countries eligible under the Instrument; the Commission shall decide on the reciprocal access and on its duration after consultation of the recipient country or countries concerned;

(f) member countries of the OECD, in the case of contracts implemented in a LDC or a highly indebted poor country, as included in the list of ODA recipients.

2. Without prejudice to the limitations inherent to the nature and objectives of the action, participation in procurement, grant and prize award procedures for actions financed under the Human Rights and Democracy thematic programme and the Peace, Stability and Conflict Prevention thematic programme as well as rapid response actions, shall be open without limitations.

3. All supplies and materials financed under the Instrument may originate from any country.

4. The eligibility rules laid down in this Article shall not apply to, and shall not create nationality restrictions for, natural persons employed or otherwise legally contracted by an eligible contractor or, where applicable, subcontractor.

5. For actions jointly co-financed by an entity, or implemented in direct or indirect management with entities as referred to in points (c)(ii) to (viii) of Article 62(1) of the Financial Regulation, the eligibility rules of those entities shall also apply.

6. Where donors provide financing to a trust fund established by the Commission or through external assigned revenues, the eligibility rules in the constitutive act of the trust fund or, in the case of external assigned revenues, in the agreement with the donor, shall apply.

7. In the case of actions financed under the Instrument and under another Union programme, eligible entities under any of those Union programmes shall be considered eligible.

8. In the case of multi-country actions, legal entities who are nationals of and, in the case of legal persons, who are also effectively established in, the countries and territories covered by the action may be considered eligible.

9. The eligibility rules laid down in this Article may be restricted with regard to the nationality, geographical location or nature of applicants, where such restrictions are required on account of the specific nature and the objectives of the action and where they are necessary for its effective implementation.

10. Tenderers, applicants and candidates from non-eligible countries may be accepted as eligible in the case of urgency or the unavailability of services in the markets of the countries or territories concerned, or in other duly substantiated cases where application of the eligibility rules would make the realisation of an action impossible or exceedingly difficult.

11. In order to promote local capacities, markets and purchases, where the Financial Regulation provides for an award on the basis of a single tender, priority shall be given to local and regional contractors. In all other cases, participation of local and regional contractors shall be promoted in accordance with the relevant provisions of that Regulation. Sustainability and due diligence criteria shall be promoted.

12. Under the Human Rights and Democracy thematic programme, any entity not covered under the definition of legal entity in point 6 of the first paragraph of Article 2 shall be eligible when this is necessary to pursue the areas of intervention of this programme.