A joint venture or consortium is a group of economic operators.

 According to the European University Institute’s Public Procurement Regulation outlined in President’s Dec. No.44/2014:

 The term ‘economic operator’ can refer to a ‘work contractor’, ‘supplier’, or ‘service provider’ and means any natural or legal person or public entity or group of such persons and/or entities which offers the execution of works, the supply of products or the provision of services on the market.

 In general terms:

 A joint venture (JV) is an entity formed between two or more parties to undertake economic activity together. Both parties agree to create a new entity by contributing equity, and then share in the revenues, expenses and control of the enterprise.

 A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies or organisations with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources to achieve a common goal.

 Within the consortium, each participant retains separate legal status and the consortium’s control over each participant is generally limited to activities involving the joint endeavour, particularly the division of profits. A consortium is formed by contract.

 As a rule groups of economic operators are authorised to tender or be candidates ("joint tender", also called "consortium"). For submission of an offer, the Institute does not require consortia to take any specific legal form; it can be a permanent, legally established grouping or one which has been constituted for a specific procurement procedure.

 More information can be found under Sections 3.1 and 3.2 of the European University Institute’s Guidebook for Tenderers.”