Open call for a subcontract for the Pact of Islands

Background

The Pact of Islands (PoI) initiative resulted from a Resolution passed by the European Parliament in March 2007, which called on the Commission to launch a specific action focusing on the implementation of European Energy Policy in peripheral island regions in order to overcome their natural and economic constraints.

The PoI is the instrument with which signatories enter into a political engagement which highlights the vulnerability of islands to climate change, stresses the need for energy security and the importance to lower the dependence on imported fuels while reminding the high economic, environmental and cultural values of European islands.

Signatories of the PoI commit to taking concerted action in line with the EU 2020 energy targets through the support and promotion of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable transport projects at the local level.

In March 2009 DG TREN launched a call for proposals inviting island partnerships to submit proposals to develop the PoI, and the Isle Pact project was selected as the winning proposal. The project was conceived as a one-off preparatory action and was financed by the Commission. The main objectives of the project were:

• to go beyond the objectives set by the EU for 2020, reducing the CO2 emissions in their respective territories by at least 20%;
• to submit an Island Sustainable Energy Action Plan (ISEAP) which outlines how the objectives will be reached;
• to mobilise sustainable energy bankable projects and investments in their respective territories;
• to submit an implementation report at least every second year;

At the end of the Isle Pact project, in November 2012, 64 insular communities had signed the PoI and 56 Island Sustainable Energy Action Plans had been prepared.

The PoI initiative and especially its tools have been structured in a manner similar to the Covenant of Mayors while taking into account the particularities of the European island communities.

The objective of the subcontract:

The objective of the subcontract is to ensure a streamlining of the initiatives – Covenant of Mayors and Pact of Islands – without losing the specificities of each one. The main goal is, therefore, to ensure the alignment of Pact of Islands commitments with the ones of the new integrated Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy and ensure support for Pact of Islands signatories. Activities and tasks performed under this subcontract will cater for the specific needs of islands communities and try as far as possible to integrate them fully into the Covenant initiative. This will hopefully allow the Pact of islands signatories to benefit from the services offered to all CoM signatories and give them additional visibility thanks to the activities planned in this subcontract.

The similarities of the initiatives, which had the same goals and are based on similar methodological tools, allow us to propose activities that are totally in line with the activities performed by the Covenant of Mayors Office. Here below is the summary of the activities that are foreseen in this subcontract.

The subcontractor will need to demonstrate a previous involvement in the IslePact contract. The tasks proposed should include the following activities:

• Promotion of islands best practices
• Capacity building for islands in view of converting iSEAPs into SEAPs and encouraging  new PoI signatories to submit a SEAP
• Networking and/or capacity building events for islands (webinars, workshops, etc.)
• Helpdesk for Pact of Island Signatories and islands in general

The subcontract will run until the end of 2016 and will be managed by FEDARENE on behalf of the Covenant of Mayors Office.

The maximum value of the subcontract will be €20,000 (VAT included)

Deadline: 15 March 2015

Proposals will be sent electronically to fedarene@fedarene.org