1.Each Commission department, as contracting authority, shall ensure that the minimum standards on industrial security set out in this Chapter, are referred to or incorporated in the contract, and complied with when awarding classified contracts or grant agreements.
2.For the purposes of paragraph 1, the competent services within the Commission shall seek the advice of the Directorate-General for Human Resources and Security, and in particular its Security Directorate, and shall ensure that model contracts and subcontracts and model grant agreements include provisions reflecting the basic principles and minimum standards for protecting EUCI to be complied with by contractors and subcontractors, and respectively beneficiaries of grant agreements.
3.The Commission shall closely cooperate with the NSA, the DSA or any other competent authority of the Member States concerned.
4.When a contracting authority, intends to launch a procedure aimed at concluding a classified contract or grant agreement, it shall seek the advice of the Commission Security Authority on issues regarding the classified nature and elements of the procedure, during all its stages.
5.Templates for and models of classified contracts and subcontracts, classified grant agreements, contract notices, guidance on the circumstances where Facility Security Clearances (FSCs) are required, Programme or Project Security Instructions (PSI), Security Aspects Letters (SALs), visits, transmission and carriage of EUCI under classified contracts or classified grant agreements shall be laid down in implementing rules on industrial security, after consulting the Commission Security Expert Group.
6.The Commission may conclude classified contracts or grant agreements which entrust tasks involving or entailing access to or the handling or storage of EUCI by economic operators registered in a Member State or in a third State with which an agreement or an administrative arrangement has been concluded in accordance with Chapter 7 of this Decision.