3.1. Step 1: Exclusion criteria  The contract clauses may be open to negotiation as long as they are justified by the tenderer  and deemed reasonable for the scope of the contract. All the clauses which derive from an  applicable regulation/law are not negotiable.  Only tenderer(s) for whom the verification of all elements did not reveal grounds for rejection  can be awarded the contract.  The evaluation will be based on the information and evidence contained in the requests to  participate/ tenders and, if applicable, on additional information and evidence provided at the  request of the  Contracting authority  during the procedure. If any of the declarations or  information provided proves to be false, the  Contracting authority  may impose administrative  sanctions  (exclusion  or  financial  penalties)  on  the  entity  providing  the  false  declarations/information.    If the evaluation of one or more elements in either step demonstrates that there are grounds  for rejection, the request to participate/tender will be rejected and will not be subjected to  further full evaluation. The unsuccessful candidates/tenderers will be informed of the ground  for rejection without being given feedback on the non-assessed content of their requests to  participate/tenders.  The objective of the exclusion criteria is to assess whether the candidate is in any of the  exclusion situations listed in Article 136(1) of the Financial Regulation.  Candidates/tenderers established to be in an exclusion situation will be rejected.  As evidence of non-exclusion each candidate needs to submit with its request to participate a  Declaration on Honour$^{4}$ in the model available in  Annex 3 .$^{5}$ The declaration must be signed  by an authorised representative of the entity providing the declaration.  The initial verification of non-exclusion of candidates will be done on the basis of the  submitted declarations and consultation of the European Union's Early Detection and  Exclusion System. The documents mentioned as supporting evidence in the Declaration on  Honour need to be provided whenever requested and where this is necessary to ensure the  proper conduct of the procedure within a deadline given by the  Contracting authority $^{6}$. $^{4}$ The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) may not be used yet in European Commission's calls for  tenders.  $^{5}$ Unless the same declaration has already been submitted for the purposes of another award procedure of the  European Commission, the situation has not changed, and the time elapsed since the issuing date of the  declaration does not exceed one year.  $^{6}$ The obligation to provide the supporting evidence will be waived in the following situations:  - if the same documents have already been provided in a previous award procedure of the European  Commission, have been issued no more than one year before the date of their request by the  Contracting authority  and are still valid at that date;  TEMPLATE: Restricted procedure - Tender specifications Part 1 Administrative Specifications  JRC R.9 - IMS-JRC-S3.1-TMP-0048 - v.1.0 17/02/2020 M(EN)  Page 12 of 32 