Division 3 Proposals for actions (projects) will be evaluated on the basis of three categories of criteria:

• exclusion criteria, to assess the applicant’s eligibility — Article 114 of the Financial Regulation;

• selection criteria, to assess the applicant’s financial and operational capacity to complete the proposed action — Article 176 of the Implementing Rules;

• award criteria, to assess the quality of the proposal taking into account its cost.

These three categories of criteria will be considered consecutively during the evaluation procedure. A project which fails to meet the requirements of one category will not be considered at the next evaluation stage and will be rejected.