Production and dissemination of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union using TED and related services

The Publications Office of the European Union has issued an open procurement (EC-OP/2026/OP/0003, TED ref. 55/2026) for the production and dissemination of the Supplement to the Official Journal (OJ S) via the TED platform, covering takeover, daily managed services, on-demand project work, governance and handover. The framework agreement has a maximum ceiling of €5,760,000 and a duration up to 54 months including a takeover phase, with tenders due via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal eSubmission system by 29 April 2026. The contract requires daily publication in all 24 official EU languages, EU-only data residency and hosting, ISO 27001 and CFPS certification, minimum technical references totalling at least 2,000 person-days, and specified KPIs including 98.5 percent availability. Award will be by best price-quality ratio with a 70 percent quality and 30 percent price weighting and standard EU procurement eligibility and exclusion rules apply.

Production and dissemination of the Supplement to the Official Journal using TED

Call identifier EC-OP/2026/OP/0003

What it funds:provision, hosting, operation, maintenance and evolution of TEDWEB and related TED services to produce and disseminate the Supplement to the Official Journal (OJ S) including publication workflows, PDF signing/timestamping, search, analytics, cloud hosting, security, support and project work (managed services, takeover, project services, handover).

Estimated total value:€5,760,000 (FWC ceiling over contract duration) ¹

1. 1Who can apply: natural or legal persons and international organisations within scope of the Treaties; third-country operators may participate if procurement access rules apply (tender documents specify eligibility).
2. 2Submission: electronic via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal/eSubmission; EU Login (PIC) required.
3. 3Contract model: single framework contract with specific contracts awarded as needed; maximum duration up to 54 months (including takeover if applicable).

Key gating selection and technical requirements (high level):minimum average annual turnover ~€2,800,000 over the last two years; evidence of professional/technical capacity including minimum reference projects (PARFs), CFPS and ISO 27001 (or equivalent) will be requested; data processing and place of performance must be within the EU; takeover and switchover obligations apply (final switchover deadline referenced in tender specs).

1. 1Procurement type: open procedure, award by best price-quality ratio (quality 70%, price 30%).
2. 2Important dates: publication 19/03/2026; deadline for receipt of tenders 29/04/2026 10:00 Europe/Luxembourg (public opening 29/04/2026 15:00).
3. 3Maximum takeover window: up to 6 months if takeover applies; switchover must meet dates in tender specifications.

How to apply:prepare a full electronic tender via the Funding & Tenders Portal / eSubmission (EU Login + PIC required). Follow the tender specifications and submit all administrative, exclusion/selection and technical documents listed in Annex I; ensure compliance with security, data residency and IP provisions.

Footnotes

1. 1See tender specifications and price schedule on the Funding & Tenders Portal (call EC-OP/2026/OP/0003) for details and official figures Tender page.

Lead contracting authority:European Commission, Publications Office. Procedure type: Open procedure. Award method: Best price-quality ratio. Nature of contract: Services. Framework agreement: Single-supplier framework agreement without reopening of competition. CPV: 72000000 IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support. Estimated total value and FWC ceiling: €5,760,000. Maximum duration: 48 months, extendable to 54 months if a takeover phase applies. Submission: Electronic via eSubmission on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. TED publication date: 19/03/2026. Deadline for receipt of tenders: 29/04/2026 10:00 Europe/Luxembourg. Public opening: 29/04/2026 15:00 Europe/Luxembourg. Reference: EC-OP/2026/OP/0003, TED reference 55/2026 190826-2026. Primary portal entry point and documents are available online EU Funding & Tenders Portal opportunity page ¹.

Scope of Work and Services Required

Objective:Select one economic operator to produce and disseminate the Supplement to the Official Journal of the EU (OJ S) using the TED website (TEDWEB) and to provide all related services, including hosting, maintenance, evolution, security, analytics, and end-to-end managed publication operations. This is a single-supplier framework contract executed via specific contracts.

Service catalogue (S1–S5):S1 Takeover Services: knowledge transfer from incumbent, data migration, parallel run, switchover by 14 March 2027 to enable OJ S publication on 15 March 2027; S2 Managed Services: TED Services (end-to-end OJ S publication), TEDWEB operations, infrastructure and cloud hosting, maintenance and change management, 3rd-level service desk, security and privacy, monitoring and analytics; S3 Project Services: consultancy, predefined specific projects and evolutions (including adding new EU Member States or official languages, eForms additions, NUTS upgrade, autocomplete, AI assistant for search queries, public API for notice-view, website searchability, TEDWEB Update), effort estimation by Function Points or person-days; S4 Overall Service Requirements: governance and relationship management, framework, financial and resource management, documentation services, service level management and reporting (monthly activity report); S5 Handover Services: full handover to new provider or contracting authority upon expiry/termination, including code, configurations, data, documentation, logs, and artifacts.

Core operational requirements:Daily OJ S publication with strict schedules and multiple media: HTML, PDF/A-1a (signed for official languages), XML; daily DVD image; daily and monthly XML packages; confidentiality until official dissemination; email alerts upon OJ S publication. Ad-hoc operations: anonymisation, correction, and removal of notices upon request; processing new eForms SDK versions; updating code lists and search/visualisation configurations.

TEDWEB functional and non-functional requirements:User-centric access to procurement notices via browsing, search (quick, advanced, expert CCL), notice view, alerts, user account and preferences, editorial content management, and platform-wide features. Non-functional: usability, accessibility (WCAG), multilingualism (24 official EU languages), performance (availability/response-time KPIs), scalability/elasticity, portability, extensibility, and interoperability with eForms (UBL).

Infrastructure, security, data and digital trust:Cloud hosting on a prominent provider; data residency exclusively within the EU; production and BETA environments with availability targets; managed services such as EKS/Kubernetes, ELB, EC2, Aurora (PostgreSQL), EBS, S3, CloudFront, Route 53, SES, IAM, KMS; CDN and WAF/bot control; strict network segregation and security baselines. Security frameworks and certifications: ISO 27001 for the company, alignment with NIST frameworks, EC security requirements (Appendices 2 and 3). eIDAS-compliant qualified digital signatures and timestamps for official-language PDFs; SSL certificate lifecycle management. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans (including annual BCP activation exercises) and periodic security assessments.

Monitoring, analytics, and visibility:Web analytics on Piwik PRO Analytics Suite (PPAS) provided by the authority; tag implementation/maintenance; Application Performance Monitoring with dashboards and 12-month retention of user session and API consumption data, including navigation timing metrics and comprehensive activity logs to support analytics. SEO, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), with biannual audits and continuous improvements; sitemap generation and robots.txt rules; Core Web Vitals monitoring.

Eligibility, Access to Procurement, and Place of Performance

Access:Participation is open on equal terms to all natural and legal persons within the scope of the EU Treaties, to international organisations, and to natural/legal persons in third countries having a special agreement with the EU in public procurement on the conditions laid down in that agreement. Entities subject to EU restrictive measures that legally impede performance are not eligible. An exclusivity clause excludes companies involved in the separate contract No 10783 on Business Continuity Plan for Publications Office Managed Services from participation (in any role), and the future award procedure for BCP successor services will exclude the successful tenderer of this call from participation.

Place of performance:Services must be performed at the contractor’s premises or other locations identified in the tender or, when explicitly requested, on the contracting authority’s premises (Luxembourg). Due to data sensitivity and applicable rules, the contractor’s place(s) of performance must be located within EU territory. Training and meetings will be mostly virtual; up to two per year may be on-site in Luxembourg, with travel/subsistence costs included in prices.

Administrative, Selection and Award Criteria

Procedure and submission:Open procedure; single-step submission via eSubmission; electronic signatures strongly encouraged (QES). Deadline 29/04/2026 10:00 Europe/Luxembourg; questions accepted until 21/04/2026 23:59 Europe/Luxembourg. A PIC is mandatory for tenderers and group members; subcontractors’ PIC is not mandatory but may be requested.

Exclusion criteria and declarations:Declaration on honour (Annex 6) from the tenderer (each group member if joint tender) and, if applicable, subcontractors/freelancers; recent judicial, tax, and social security certificates will be requested only from the proposed awardee. Entities must not be under exclusion grounds (Article 138 FR) or EU restrictive measures.

Economic and financial capacity (minimum levels):Average yearly turnover of at least €2,800,000 over the last two closed financial years (most recent closed within last 18 months). Reliance on other entities permitted with a signed commitment letter (Annex 7).

Professional and technical capacity (proofs and thresholds):Company certifications and expertise: at least one Certified Function Point Specialist (CFPS) within the tenderer/joint tender; ISO 27001 certification for at least one economic operator in the group. Project Activity Reference Forms (PARFs): submit 3–5 references executed within the past three years (projects may start earlier but must show execution in the reference period), each at least 200 person-days with client reference letters. Across accepted PARFs, coverage must include: development/enhancement and operation/maintenance of a multilingual, daily-publishing, search-enabled website serving at least 1,200 concurrent users; operation/management of a public-cloud hosted web application; system integration covering at least three of Elastic Stack, NoSQL, REST APIs, PostgreSQL, Oracle DB, MySQL, CMS/DXP; digital trust services (signature, qualified seal/timestamp). Cumulative minimum workload across accepted PARFs: 2,000 person-days.

Technical tender content and page limits (Annex 12 form):Document 1 Managed Services (S2), max 30 pages; Document 2 Project Services (S3), max 15 pages; Document 3 Overall Service Requirements (S4), max 10 pages; Document 4 Handover Services (S5), max 10 pages; Document 5 Case Study “TEDWEB Update,” max 15 pages; Document 6 Takeover Services (S1), max 15 pages. Structure, font and character limits apply; no cross-references between documents; no pricing in the technical tender.

Technical award criteria (pass-marks and weights):Criterion 1 S2 Managed Services 40 points, pass-mark 30; Criterion 2 S3 Project Services 25 points, pass-mark 19; Criterion 3 S4 Overall Service Requirements 10 points, pass-mark 5; Criterion 4 S5 Handover Services 10 points, pass-mark 5; Criterion 5 Case Study “TEDWEB Update” 15 points, pass-mark 11; Total 100 points, overall pass-mark 70. Separate mandatory pass-mark: Criterion 6 S1 Takeover Services 20 points, pass-mark 14; failure renders the technical tender unsuccessful, but points do not enter the price-quality formula.

Financial tender and pricing model:Mandatory Price Schedule and Case Study (Excel + PDF; PDF prevails on discrepancy). All prices in EUR, no decimals, all-inclusive, VAT-exempt for EU institutions. S1 priced as a one-off capped at three times the monthly S2 fee; S2 baseline covers 1,100,000 published notices/year and 1,200 peak concurrent users (average daily peak over a month) with incremental price lines for additional notices and users; optional additional test environments on a weekly fixed fee; S3 includes fixed-price predefined projects, blended day rates (contractor’s or on-site in Luxembourg), and Function Point unit pricing; S4 monthly fixed fee; S5 one-off fixed fee. For exceptional out-of-hours work: hourly rate = day rate / 8 × 1.5. Financial evaluation includes abnormal low price checks.

Best price-quality ratio calculation:Quality weighting 70%; Price weighting 30%; R = (70 × Q/Qmax) + (30 × Pmin/P), where P is the total in the financial case study, and Q is the technical score out of 100.

Key Technical, Security and Delivery Obligations

• Takeover: five phases (Initiate, Plan, Deploy and parallel run, Switchover, Close-out) with phase approvals, daily reporting during 30-day parallel run, readiness checklists, DNS and migration procedures, hypercare, and switchover stabilization reporting. Deadline: switchover by 14 March 2027. Takeover price cap: three times monthly S2 fee.
• Daily OJ S processing: ingestion from TED Monitor via SFTP, XML validation and normalization, indexing in Elasticsearch, PDF/A-1a generation (signed for official languages using eIDAS-qualified trust services), on-demand RSS, public site update between 00:01–09:00 on release day, and archiving (daily DVD ISO, tar.gz).
• Media and formats: HTML, PDF/A-1a (signed for official languages and non-signed on demand for all languages), XML; daily DVD image containing PDFs in all EU official languages; daily packages (XML) and monthly packages (aggregated XML) published on Open Data.
• Publication schedule (CET/CEST): Monday edition prepared Friday ~17:00, live between 00:01–09:00 Monday; similarly Tuesday–Friday editions synchronized; daily package ready by 09:30 of the same day; monthly package on fifth working day of next month by 09:30 (the contracting authority may alter calendars and times).
• Service desk: third-level support 07:00–20:00 on working days; contractor provides and operates the Issue Tracking System (e.g., JIRA) covering incidents, requests, CRs, time planning, effort and reporting; full ticket lifecycle and RCA for incidents.
• Maintenance: corrective, emergency, preventive, adaptive, perfective; upgrades; regression automation and APM integration; SonarQube or equivalent code quality with Maintainability rating A maintained continuously; monthly reporting and remediation of any issues below thresholds.
• Search and API: public and private search APIs; expert queries using Common Command Language (CCL); pagination and scroll modes with point-in-time consistency; rate-limiting, fair use, and bot mitigation that preserves legitimate search engine crawlers.
• Analytics and logs: APM with 12-month user session and API data, dashboards, and on-demand/ad-hoc reporting; log retention minimum one year; provision of analytics-ready logs for 3rd-party analytics processing.
• Security, privacy, and EU data residency: ISO 27001 for the company; compliance with EC security baselines (Appendices 2 and 3); SSL/TLS cert lifecycle; incident handling and immediate notification for major events; GDPR compliance under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725; all processing and storage strictly within the EU; data center locations disclosed on request.
• BCP/DR and service continuity: contractor to maintain BCP/DRP aligned to ISO 22301, with periodic tests and reports; participate in annual OP-led BCP activation exercise; maintain continuously updated repository of TED system artifacts for continuity and recovery.
• KPIs and reporting: monthly activity report by the 5th working day of the following month, including service level performance and KPI incidents, release overviews, S3 project status, suggestions for novelties/improvements (minimum 2 per quarter), and financial reporting by specific contract.

Pricing Lines (as per Price Schedule and Case Study)

• S1 Takeover Services: fixed one-time fee, capped at three times monthly S2 fee.
• S2 Managed Services: baseline monthly fee covering 1,100,000 published notices/year and 1,200 peak concurrent users; incremental pricing per additional notices/users; optional additional test environments on a weekly fixed fee.
• S3 Project Services: predefined fixed-price projects (add MS, add official language, NUTS upgrade, add eForm, search UI enhancements, AI assistant, public API, make webpages searchable, TEDWEB Update), blended day rates (contractor premises and on-site in Luxembourg), Function Point unit rate.
• S4 Overall Service Requirements: fixed monthly fee.
• S5 Handover Services: fixed one-time fee.

Who Can Apply and How

Eligible Applicant Types

Eligible applicants include economic operators capable of delivering end-to-end IT managed services and publication operations: SME, large enterprise, system integrator, cloud/hosting operator, software vendor, digital trust services provider, cybersecurity service provider, web and search technology provider, and any consortium of such entities. Universities/research institutes can participate as subcontractors or consortium members if they meet capacity requirements. International organisations can participate. Freelancers can be engaged via subcontracting/freelancing. Entities tied to OP BCP services FWC 10783 are excluded.

Funding Type

Procurement, services contract under a single-supplier framework agreement. The Publications Office purchases services; contractor invoices for accepted deliverables and periods; no grants or co-funding.

Consortium Requirement

Single tenderer or joint tender (consortium) is allowed. Joint and several liability applies for group members. Subcontracting and freelancing are permitted; reliance on third-party capacities must be backed by commitment letters. Cross-subcontracting between competing tenderers is forbidden.

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility)

Open to natural and legal persons within the scope of the EU Treaties and to international organisations; also open to persons/legal entities from third countries having a special agreement with the EU in public procurement, under the conditions of that agreement. Place of performance and data residency must be within EU territory. Entities subject to restrictive measures that prevent performance are ineligible.

Target Sector

Core sectors and themes:ICT and digital services; web platforms and content management (DXP/CMS); cloud hosting and DevOps; search and data indexing (e.g., Elasticsearch); data engineering and interoperability (eForms/UBL, XML processing); cybersecurity and compliance (ISO 27001, EC baselines, GDPR); digital trust and qualified signatures/time stamps (eIDAS); user experience and accessibility; analytics and application performance monitoring; SEO/AEO/GEO; public-sector publication workflows; BCP/DR.

Mentioned Countries

Luxembourg (contracting authority premises and potential meeting/training location). Sweden (Stockholm AWS region referenced in system specifications). European Union broadly (EU territory requirement for place of performance and data residency). European Economic Area is referenced in TEDWEB functional documents (contextual to procurement domain data). Candidate countries and many other countries appear in TEDWEB search reference data but are not eligibility determinants. Geographic eligibility for tendering follows EU procurement access rules.

Project Stage

This is a full implementation, operation and evolution engagement:takeover and switchover; daily operations and managed services; change and evolution projects; security, monitoring and analytics; governance; and final handover. Expected maturity: readiness for production-grade managed service delivery at scale.

Funding Amount

Framework ceiling:€5,760,000 over the duration of the FWC. No minimum ordering commitment. Possible negotiated repetition of similar services up to 50% of original FWC value within three years of conclusion (as per Financial Regulation provisions).

Application Type

Open call for tenders; electronic submission via eSubmission on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal; single-stage procedure with technical and financial evaluation and price-quality ratio determination. Public opening session per contract notice timeline.

Nature of Support

Payment for services delivered under a framework services contract; quarterly payments for managed and overall services; balance payments for takeover, projects and handover upon acceptance.

Application Stages

One-stage open procedure. Evaluation flow:administrative compliance and access checks; exclusion criteria; selection criteria (financial, professional/technical); compliance with requirements; technical award criteria scoring; financial evaluation; best price-quality calculation; request and verification of supporting documents from the proposed awardee.

Success Rates

No historical or expected success rate is published for this procedure. Award will be based on meeting pass-marks and achieving the best price-quality ratio.

Co-funding Requirement

None. This is an EU procurement contract; services are purchased and paid by the Publications Office. Contractor bears bid/participation costs and includes all operational costs in the unit prices.

Submission Package and Templates

• Invitation to Tender letter: submission rules, timeline, opening session, communications.
• Tender Specifications: full scope, evaluation steps, selection/award criteria; S1–S5 service descriptions; working environment; security and digital sovereignty; project management (PM2 and PM2-Agile); KPIs; deliverables and acceptance; reporting; code of conduct; environmental, fraud, equal opportunities provisions; issue priorities; definitions.
• Draft Framework Contract No 12056: special and general conditions; price revision, payment modalities, IPR for IT, security appendices; electronic exchanges; checks and audits; termination.
• Appendix 2 Security Requirements and Appendix 3 Security Baseline: EC security rules for contractors and external connections.
• Price Schedule and Case Study (Excel template): mandatory completion in Excel and submission in PDF and Excel; case study totals feed the price-quality formula.
• Technical Annex I Functional Specifications: exhaustive use cases for notice processing, notice view, search (quick, advanced, expert), browse, user account management, content management, platform-wide functionalities; business rules; UI mockups; non-functional specifications; analytics tracking events and triggers; extensive reference data for search/browse facets.
• Appendix I.1 TEDWEB Search (Excel): search fields for UI and indexing, CPV and NUTS trees, facets, code lists and mappings between TED schema and eForms; expert search field tree.
• Technical Annex II System Specifications: architecture, assets, AWS services and regions, environment sizing, workflows (OJ S processing, exports, notice viewing/translation), services specs (Elasticsearch, RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL, Liferay DXP, orchestrator, indexation, normalization, notifications), security controls, storage layout, versioning and visibility.

Mandatory administrative forms and evidences:Annex 3A Form for identification of the tenderer; Annex €3BPersons designated to sign and contact person (requested prior to award); Annex 4A Questionnaire for joint tenders, subcontracting and freelancing; Annex €4BAgreement/Power of Attorney for group leader; Annex 5 Guarantee Model (not applicable to this FWC as guarantees are not required); Annex 6 Declaration on honour; Annex 7 Commitment letter (for reliance on third-party capacities); Annex 8 IPR statements; Annex 9 Acceptance and delivery note; Annex 10 PARF form (3–5 references with client letters); Annex 11 Key personnel profiles; Annex 12 Form for technical tender (Documents 1–6); Annex 13 Timesheet (for Time & Means).

Notable Compliance and Delivery Milestones

1. 1Switchover deadline: no later than 14 March 2027 to publish OJ S on 15 March 2027.
2. 2Daily publication window: update public website between 00:01–09:00 on release day; daily package by 09:30 same day; monthly package by 09:30 on fifth working day of next month.
3. 3Parallel run: expected 30 calendar days with daily error logs and final validation report.
4. 4Security and BCP: periodic tests, biannual security reporting or on request, annual BCP activation exercise with OP’s BCP contractor.
5. 5Monthly activity reporting: due by 5th working day of following month; contracting authority to accept/reject within 10 working days.

Compliance, Legal and IPR

Full compliance with applicable EU data protection, environmental, social and labour law obligations. IPR for IT components governed by FWC special conditions: ownership of commissioned software by the Union; open-source preference; licensing of pre-existing rights; cloud services and embedded IP handled per specific clauses; use of EU protected material under specified conditions. Access to procurement and exclusion rules per the Financial Regulation. Checks and audits may be conducted; EDES obligations apply.

Summary: What this Opportunity Is About and How to Explain It

This is a large-scale, four-to-five-year single-supplier services framework for running and evolving the EU’s Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) publication pipeline and user-facing platform. The contractor will take over from the incumbent, implement a controlled transition and switchover, and then operate a complete managed service that ingests, validates and publishes the OJ S each working day in strict time windows. It must render notices in multiple formats, generate qualified eIDAS-compliant signed PDFs in official languages, maintain robust search, alerts, and APIs, and provide editorial and user experience capabilities through TEDWEB. The contractor will also host and secure the solution entirely within the EU, align to ISO 27001 and EC security baselines, maintain business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities, and enable continuous improvement through analytics, APM, SEO/AEO/GEO, and governance processes. The framework also contains predefined projects and an evolutions track measured either in Function Points or person-days, covering a broad range of feature updates like adding new languages or forms, advanced search features, and platform modernization initiatives.

To win, bidders must demonstrate robust economic capacity, company-level ISO 27001 and CFPS expertise, and strong, recent project references evidencing high-scale, multilingual, cloud-hosted web systems involving daily publication and search for 1,200+ concurrent users, plus integration with core technologies and digital trust services. The technical offer follows a strict structure (Documents 1–6) with pass-marks per criterion and a global threshold. Prices are all-inclusive, structured by service line (S1–S5) with a baseline monthly S2 managed-services fee and incremental pricing for volume growth. The award is made based on the best price-quality ratio. Overall, this is an end-to-end managed publishing, platform, and cloud operations engagement for the EU’s official procurement publication channel, demanding excellence in secure operations, timely publication, data integrity, service continuity, and user-centric digital services at scale.

Footnotes

1. 1Official tender page and documents: EU Funding & Tenders Portal entry EC-OP/2026/OP/0003. Invitation to Tender, Tender Specifications, Draft FWC, Security Appendices, Price Schedule and Case Study, Technical Annex I and II, and Annex templates are published therein.

Funding Opportunity Overview

This is an open procurement tender (Procedure ID:EC-OP/2026/OP/0003) launched by the Publications Office of the European Union for the production and dissemination of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (OJ S) via the TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) platform and related services. The contract encompasses the daily publication of approximately 800,000 to 900,000 public procurement notices annually across all 24 official EU languages, as well as the operation, maintenance, and evolution of the TEDWEB platform serving over 1,200 peak concurrent users.

Estimated Budget:€5,760,000 maximum total value over the contract duration, covering baseline managed services capacity of 1,100,000 published notices per calendar year and 1,200 peak concurrent users on average per day over a calendar month.

Contract Duration:Maximum 54 months (including up to 6 months takeover period) or 48 months without takeover. The contract is structured as a framework agreement (FWC) without reopening of competition.

TED Reference:55/2026 190826-2026; Publication Date: 19 March 2026

Key Deadlines

• Deadline for Receipt of Tenders: 29 April 2026, 10:00 CET (Europe/Luxembourg time)
• Deadline for Submitting Questions: 21 April 2026, 23:59 CET
• Public Opening of Tenders: 29 April 2026, 15:00 CET
• Minimum 6 working days required between question submission cutoff and tender deadline

Scope of Services

The contract comprises five integrated service components that must be delivered seamlessly to ensure continuous publication and dissemination of EU public procurement notices. The services range from initial system takeover to ongoing operation and eventual handover.

Service S1 - Takeover Services:Knowledge transfer and system transition period of up to 6 months. The contractor must acquire comprehensive knowledge of applications, processes, and ongoing activities related to TEDWEB and establish parallel operations before full switchover. The switchover execution must be finalized by 14 March 2027 to ensure publication of the OJ S on 15 March 2027. Maximum cost: three times the monthly S2 fee. Takeover includes five distinct phases: Initiate, Plan, Deploy and parallel run, Switchover, and Close-out.

Service S2 - Managed Services (Recurring Monthly):Continuous operational services including: TED Services (daily publication of procurement notices in HTML, PDF/A-1a signed and unsigned, XML formats, DVD archiving, daily and monthly packages); TEDWEB operation and maintenance; infrastructure and cloud hosting with data residency in EU; maintenance and change management; service desk support (7:00-20:00 CET/CEST working days); TEDWEB security and privacy; monitoring and analytics; and search engine optimization. Services must achieve specified Key Performance Indicators for availability, response time, and concurrent user capacity.

Service S3 - Project Services (On-Demand):Discretionary services for evolution and enhancement including consultancy, specific predefined projects (such as adding new EU Member States or languages, upgrading classifications, adding new eForms, implementing AI assistants), and general evolutions. Services are estimated and invoiced on a time-and-materials basis using Function Point Analysis or person-day effort. Predefined projects carry fixed pricing; other projects are billed at agreed daily rates or Function Point rates.

Service S4 - Overall Service Requirements (Monthly):Transversal governance and management services including governance and relationship management, FWC and resource management, documentation services, and service level management with monthly reporting and KPI tracking. Monthly activity reports must include financial reporting, KPI compliance statistics, and service improvement recommendations.

Service S5 - Handover Services:Complete transition of services at FWC expiry or termination, including delivery of all source code, configurations, data, documentation, and transfer of services to another contractor or the Publications Office. Maximum cost: three times the monthly S2 fee.

Who Can Apply

Eligible Applicants

• Economic operators able to deliver IT services (CPV classification: 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support)
• All natural and legal persons falling within the scope of the EU Treaties
• International organisations with special agreements with the European Union in public procurement
• Third country nationals and entities, provided compliance with EU public procurement agreements
• Sole tenderers, joint tenders (consortia), or tenderers with subcontractors/freelancers

Exclusivity Restrictions

Companies involved in executing FWC No. 10783 Provision of services related to the Business Continuity Plan for Publications Office Managed Services are excluded from participation, regardless of their proposed role. This exclusion applies to the tenderer, group members, and any linked entities. Additionally, the successful contractor from this tender will be excluded from participating in future award procedures for the Business Continuity Plan successor contract. Any situation presenting professional conflicting interests must be immediately disclosed by the contractor.

Selection Criteria and Requirements

Economic and Financial Capacity

Minimum average yearly turnover during the past two financial years of €2,800,000. Financial documents must be provided from the latest two closed financial years (most recent year closed within last 18 months). Tenderers may rely on capacities of other entities through commitment letters, though abstract commitments are disregarded.

Professional and Technical Capacity

• CFPS Certification: Certified Function Point Specialist certification must be valid at tender submission deadline. In joint tenders, at least one group member must hold valid CFPS certification.
• ISO 27001 Certification: Information security management system certification must be valid at tender submission deadline. In joint tenders, at least one group member must hold valid ISO 27001 certification.
• Project References (PARFs): Minimum 3, maximum 5 project activity reference forms covering past three years. Projects must include actual executed tasks related to multilingual websites with search capabilities, web application hosting on public cloud infrastructure, system integration work with specified technologies (Elastic Stack, NoSQL database, REST API, PostgreSQL, Oracle DB, MySQL, CMS, Digital Experience Platform), or digital trust services. Minimum 200 person-days workload per PARF required. Collective references must total at least 2,000 person-days and cover all specified technical areas.

Award Criteria and Evaluation

The contract will be awarded to the tenderer offering the best price-quality ratio, evaluated on a 70% quality / 30% price weighting basis. All tenders must achieve minimum pass marks on each technical criterion and a total technical score of at least 70 out of 100 points.

Technical Evaluation Criteria:Completeness and relevance of approach to Managed Services S2 (40 points, minimum 30); Project Services S3 (25 points, minimum 19); Overall Service Requirements S4 (10 points, minimum 5); Handover Services S5 (10 points, minimum 5); TEDWEB Update case study (15 points, minimum 11). Takeover Services S1 is evaluated separately (20 points, minimum 14) and failure to meet its pass mark results in overall technical failure regardless of other scores.

Financial Evaluation:Based on a completed price schedule with unit prices for all service components. The financial tender must include prices for S1 (one-time fixed takeover fee), monthly S2 baseline cost with pricing for published notices and concurrent user increments, specific project pricing, additional test environment weeks, daily rates for on-site and off-site project services, Function Point pricing for consultancy, monthly S4 fees, and one-time S5 handover cost. All prices must be in EUR with no decimals, exclusive of VAT (EU is VAT exempt).

Submission Requirements

All tenders must be submitted exclusively through the eSubmission electronic submission system accessible via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. No paper or email submissions will be accepted. Tenderers must be registered in the Participant Register with a valid Participant Identification Code (PIC).

• Submission is electronic only via eSubmission system on the F&T Portal
• Access requires EU Login account; create Participant Register account if not already registered
• Tenders may be withdrawn or replaced until the deadline; only the latest submitted tender will be evaluated
• Maximum 200 documents (files) per submission; individual file size limit of 50 MB
• Supported file formats and detailed technical requirements available in eSubmission Quick Guide
• Tender validity period binding offer duration from submission deadline (specified in contract notice)
• No separate technical and financial tenders; all required documents submitted in single submission

Key Technical Specifications and Conditions

Infrastructure and Data Residency

• Cloud hosting on prominent provider (reference implementation: AWS); data must reside exclusively within EU territory
• Production environment operational 24/7; test environment availability 7:00-19:00 working days
• Minimum one production and one test environment; additional test environments available on request
• Production architecture with multi-availability zone deployment for redundancy and high availability
• Kubernetes-based container orchestration for scalability and elasticity
• No vendor lock-in; architecture must use industry-standard and open-source components

Service Level and Performance Requirements

• Minimum 98.5% daily availability for TED services
• Response time thresholds: TEDWEB pages ≤ 2 seconds (90th percentile), API responses ≤ 1 second
• Support capacity for up to 1,200 peak concurrent users (with increment pricing for additional capacity)
• Publication schedule compliance: OJ S daily editions published between 00:01-09:00 on publication date
• Daily XML export files delivered by deadline (Friday 17:00 for Monday publication, etc.)
• Signed PDF generation and time-stamping for all official language versions within publication deadline

Security, Data Protection, and Compliance

• ISO 27001 compliant information security management system required throughout contract
• Compliance with eIDAS Regulation (EU No 910/2014) for digital signatures and timestamps
• GDPR and Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 compliance for personal data processing
• Data protection baseline: personal data processed only in EU, no external access, contractor cannot change data location without written authorization
• Annual Business Continuity Plan activation exercises; disaster recovery capability testing
• Penetration testing and security incident management procedures; quarterly security reporting
• Fair Use Policy implementation to prevent malicious bot traffic and DDoS attacks
• Log retention minimum 1 year; security audit and certification management

Technology Stack and Open Source

• Preferred use of open-source software; proprietary solutions must be justified
• Support for multiple TED schema versions (2.0.5 through 2.0.9) and eForms schema simultaneously
• Elasticsearch-based search engine with full-text, advanced, and expert search capabilities
• RESTful API design for notice search (public and internal APIs)
• Liferay DXP platform for content management and portal functionality
• Automated testing with regression test capability; code quality analysis via SonarQube (rating A minimum for maintainability)
• CI/CD pipeline with infrastructure-as-code using Terraform and automated deployment

Languages and Accessibility

• Publication in all 24 official EU languages with dynamic language switching
• WCAG 2.1 Level AA web accessibility compliance
• PDF/A-1a format for archival; signed PDFs for official languages using qualified trust services
• Machine translation capability via eTranslation service for non-official languages
• SEO optimization including structured data, sitemaps, robots.txt, Core Web Vitals compliance

Pricing Structure

Pricing is based on unit costs with specific escalation provisions. All prices must be quoted in EUR without decimals, net of VAT. The contractor bears all costs including management, coordination, licenses, cloud services, and meeting expenses.

S1 Takeover Services:Fixed one-time fee, maximum three times the monthly S2 baseline fee. Only applicable if contractor is not incumbent provider; reduced proportionally if previous contractor becomes subcontractor.

S2 Managed Services (Monthly):Baseline monthly fixed fee covering base capacity of 1,100,000 notices/year and 1,200 peak concurrent users. Additional incremental pricing for each 75,000 notices above baseline and each 300 additional peak concurrent users. Increments calculated using step-based formula (0 increments up to 74,999 excess, 1 increment for 75,000-149,999, etc.).

S3 Project Services:Fixed unit prices for 11 predefined projects (e.g., add EU Member State, add official language, upgrade NUTS, add eForm, implement AI assistant). Blended day rates (per person-day) for on-premises and on-site services. Function Point rates for consultancy and evolution projects. All project services include internal work effort, quality assurance, testing, deployment, and risk management.

S4 Overall Service Requirements:Fixed monthly fee covering governance, FWC management, documentation maintenance, and service level management. Includes monthly activity reports with KPI tracking and financial reporting.

S5 Handover Services:Fixed one-time fee, maximum three times monthly S2 baseline fee. Covers complete transition of services including source code delivery, configuration handover, data transfer, documentation compilation, and knowledge transfer to successor contractor or Publications Office.

Additional Test Environments:Fixed weekly pricing when contracting authority requests extra test environments beyond the standard BETA environment.

Price Adjustment:Annual price indexation using HICP (Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices) Euro area index. Formula: New Price = Original Price × (Ir / Io), rounded to four decimals.

Payment Terms and Conditions

Payments are made exclusively in EUR following submission of properly documented invoices. Pre-financing and interim payments are not applicable; only balance payments and quarterly payments apply.

S1, S3, S5 Services (Balance Payment):Payment upon completion and acceptance of deliverables. Contractor invoices after submission of approved reports and deliverables. Publications Office must approve within 30 days; payment within 30 days of invoice receipt. Payment suspension applies if documentation is incomplete; contractor has 1 week to cure deficiencies.

S2, S4 Services (Quarterly Payments):Contractor may claim monthly services on quarterly basis. Invoice must include monthly activity report approved by contracting authority, pre-existing rights list/declaration, and reference to specifications. Publications Office approves and pays within 30 days of invoice receipt.

Payment Conditions:Bank transfers to contractor's designated EUR account. No performance guarantee or retention money applicable. Interest on late payment accrues per Financial Regulation. All reimbursement of expenses excluded. Contractor bears all travel, accommodation, and meeting costs.

Intellectual Property Rights and Exploitation

The EU automatically acquires full ownership of commissioned software and all results produced under this contract, including source code, configurations, and documentation. The contractor retains no intellectual property rights in the deliverables.

• Full ownership of commissioned software and documentation vests in the European Union upon creation
• Union has unlimited rights to use, modify, adapt, translate, distribute, and sublicense all results
• Pre-existing rights and licensed software remain property of contractor but are licensed to Union for contract purposes and subsequent operational use
• Open-source software components used must allow unrestricted use and modification by Union
• Contractor must provide complete list of pre-existing rights with each invoice and warrant all materials are free from third-party claims
• Source code delivery and documentation must be sufficient for third-party maintenance and transition
• Moral rights of human creators acknowledged but cannot restrict Union exploitation rights

Contract Management and Key Performance Indicators

Performance is monitored through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) covering availability, response time, concurrent users, publication deadlines, and customer satisfaction. Non-compliance with KPIs can trigger liquidated damages.

• Monthly KPI tracking and reporting in activity reports
• TEDWEB availability: minimum 98.5% (daily measurement, excludes scheduled maintenance)
• Response time: 90th percentile ≤ 2 seconds for standard pages, ≤ 1 second for API responses
• Concurrent user support: 1,200 peak users baseline, scaling capability for incremental growth
• Publication schedule compliance: daily OJ S delivery within publication windows
• Service Desk response: availability 7:00-20:00 CET/CEST working days
• Search functionality: full-text, advanced, and expert search operational with faceted filtering
• Liquidated damages for KPI breach: calculated per KPI specification; total damages capped at 30% of annual FWC value

Important Conditions and Obligations

Termination Rights

• Either party may terminate for convenience with 9 months written notice (no compensation)
• Contracting authority may terminate if maximum FWC amount is exhausted, with 1 month notice
• Termination of FWC does not impact validity of specific contracts signed before termination
• Upon termination, contractor must execute complete handover per S5 specifications
• Contractor entitled to payment only for services rendered and accepted before termination effective date

Subcontracting and Conflict of Interest

• Subcontracting permitted with contracting authority approval; contractor retains full liability
• Changes to subcontractors during execution require written approval; cannot substantially alter tender terms
• Contractor must immediately disclose any professional conflicting interests or conflicts with parallel EU contracts
• Failure to disclose conflicts can result in FWC termination for breach
• Personnel working on contract must comply with security requirements and acceptable use policies

Data Protection and Confidentiality

• Contractor processes personal data only in performance of contract and subject to EU data protection regulations
• Data must remain within EU territory; no transfer outside EU without explicit authorization
• Data centers must be located in EU Member States; contractor cannot relocate data without written approval
• OJ S notices and user data remain confidential until scheduled public release
• Contractor must maintain confidentiality of all materials, processes, and information for 3 years post-termination
• Data breach or security incidents must be reported immediately to contracting authority

Liability and Force Majeure

• Contractor liable for damages caused by non-performance or improper performance of FWC
• Force majeure (unforeseeable external events beyond parties' control) suspends obligations but does not terminate contract
• Contractor must notify contracting authority of force majeure event immediately and take mitigation measures
• Suspension due to force majeure does not extend FWC duration

Applicable Law and Dispute Resolution

The framework contract is governed by European Union law, supplemented where necessary by the law of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) is explicitly excluded. The courts of Luxembourg have exclusive jurisdiction over any disputes regarding validity, interpretation, performance, or termination of the contract or specific contracts thereunder.

Essential Information for Applicants

Prospective applicants must understand this is a highly technical and complex contract requiring substantial IT infrastructure expertise, proven experience with large-scale EU systems, and the ability to manage daily publication of notices in 24 languages while ensuring 98.5% uptime. The successful contractor will be responsible for one of the EU's most critical public procurement information systems, supporting transparency and competition in EU public contracting.

• Minimum €2.8 million average annual turnover required; significant financial and operational capacity needed
• CFPS and ISO 27001 certifications are mandatory selection criteria; obtain before submission if not currently held
• Three to five relevant project references with minimum 2,000 combined person-days covering web development, cloud hosting, and digital trust services
• Detailed technical proposals for each service component (S1-S5) will be heavily weighted in evaluation (70% of award decision)
• Unit pricing must be realistic and sustainable across 54-month duration with only HICP-indexed adjustments
• Ability to execute 6-month takeover by 14 March 2027 is critical; schedule readiness is monitored intensively
• Cloud infrastructure must be readily scalable to accommodate growth in EU notices (trending increase observed annually)
• Post-award, contractor must complete extensive knowledge transfer, security clearances, and training before autonomously operating TED
• Incumbent contractor advantages exist but are not decisive; evaluation criteria are transparent and competition is open

Contact Information and Resources

All tenders must be submitted through the EU Funding & Tenders Portal at EU Funding & Tenders Portal. The official TED reference is 55/2026 190826-2026. Questions regarding the procurement should be submitted through the portal's Questions & Answers section by 21 April 2026. Administrative and contractual inquiries should be directed to OP-CONTRATS-AOC@publications.europa.eu. Performance-related inquiries may be sent to the Publications Office of the European Union, 20 rue de Reims, L-2417 Luxembourg.