Article 11 — Common procurement actions

1. Common procurement actions shall consist of activities related to the cooperation of legal entities in the procurement of defence products, at any point in the life cycle of such defence products, including for the purpose of establishing, managing and maintaining defence industrial readiness pools. 2. Only the following legal entities shall be eligible for common procurement actions: (a) contracting authorities of Member States or associated countries; (b) international organisations; (c) SEAPs; (d) the EDA. 3. Common procurement actions shall be carried out by: (a) a consortium of legal entities as referred to in paragraph 2, including at least three entities referred to in paragraph 2, point (a), from at least three Member States or associated countries of which at least two shall be contracting authorities of two Member States; or (b) a SEAP. 4. Member States and associated countries carrying out a common procurement action shall appoint, by unanimity, a procurement agent to act on their behalf for the purposes of that common procurement. The procurement agent shall carry out the procurement procedures and conclude the resulting contracts with contractors on behalf of the participating countries. The procurement agent may participate in the action as a beneficiary and act as the coordinator of the consortium of legal entities, therefore being able to manage and combine funds from the Programme and funds from the participating Member States and associated countries. 5. The procurement procedures referred to in paragraph 4 shall be based on an agreement to be signed by the participating Member States and associated countries with the procurement agent under the conditions set out in the work programme. The agreement shall, in particular, determine the practical arrangements governing the common procurement and the decision-making process as regards the choice of the procedure, the assessment of the tenders and the award of the contract. 6. The procurement agent shall apply criteria equivalent to those set out in Article 9 to its procurement procedures and contracts with contractors and require that those criteria are applied to subcontractors. 7. By way of derogation from paragraph 6, in order to take into account industrial cooperation with non-associated third countries, common procurement that involves a subcontractor that is allocated between 15 % and 35 % of the value of the contract, and that is not established or does not have its executive management structures in the Union or in an associated country, shall be eligible for support under the Programme provided that a direct contractual relationship related to the defence product has been established between the contractor and that subcontractor prior to the date of entry into force of this Regulation. 8. Procurement agents shall notify the Commission of the guarantees referred to in Article 9(6). Further information on those guarantees shall be made available to the Commission upon request. The Commission shall inform the committee referred to in Article 77 of any notification provided in accordance with this paragraph. 9. Before launching a procurement procedure for a common procurement action under this Regulation, the procurement agent shall inform Member States not participating in the planned procedure and give them the opportunity to submit, within a reasonable timeframe, a substantiated request to the procurement agent to purchase additional quantities of defence products for them. If such a request is submitted, the common procurement contract shall reserve the right of participating contracting authorities to purchase additional quantities of defence products for such Member States, without prejudice to applicable Union and national rules relating to the export of defence products. 10. Before launching a procurement procedure for a common procurement action under this Regulation, the procurement agent shall, where possible, also inform associated countries and Ukraine of the planned procedure and give them the opportunity to submit a substantiated request to the procurement agent to purchase additional quantities of defence products for them. If such a request is submitted, the common procurement contract shall reserve the right of participating contracting authorities to purchase additional quantities of defence products for associated countries and Ukraine.