Twinning Institutional Building Tool
Twinning is an instrument for institutional development and a new form of direct technical cooperation between the authorities of the Member States and beneficiary countries. Twinning aims to help beneficiary countries improve and strengthen the administrative functioning of public authorities, their structure, human resources, management capacity, which should facilitate the implementation of EU legislation (acquis communautaire).
The Twinning tool includes the framework that governs cooperation between the public authority (the beneficiary) and the partner authority of the EU member state. Together, they develop and implement a Twinning project in the beneficiary country.
A key feature of the Twinning project is the direct exchange of specific experience in a certain area of government regulation with the aim of implementing EU norms and standards, transfer of know-how and best practices between the public authorities of the EU member states and their beneficiary partners, gaining unique national experience.
Unlike other types of technical assistance, Twinning projects are not classical technical assistance that provides one-way support. Twinning projects are aimed at solving a specific problem and should be completed by the achievement of compulsory results, which is the responsibility of the project leaders - high level public servants from the EU Member State and beneficiary countries.
From the administrations of the EU member states, the main contribution to the Twinning project, which will provide the necessary changes in the long run, is the team of short and medium-term EU experts on the implementation of the acquis in the public authorities of the new member states, candidate countries and potential candidates for the EU. The proposed experts cannot be private consultants, but are public servants of similar bodies or representatives of Mandated Bodies of EU member states. Proposals for partnerships within the framework of Twinning projects are evaluated only on the basis of their quality and selection is carried out according to a special procedure.
Within the framework of the realization of Twinning projects, such activities as counselling (on bills drafting, organizational and informational issues, etc.), trainings, study visits and internships are provided.
The Twinning project can be either a classic Twinning (up to 36 months) and a budget of up to 2 million euros, or as a facilitated Twinning (Light up to 6 months) and a budget of up to 250 thousand euros.
Twinning partners receive a common benefit, for example:
- exchange of experience and knowledge on the basis of equal communication between the partners of the Twinning project ("from a public servant to a public servant");
- introduction of the best practices of the EU Member State authorities;
- experience in the management of technical assistance projects, in particular, Twinning;
- complementarity, if a consortium is a partner from the EU;
- achievement of the national legislation correspondence in a certain area with the EU norms and standards;
- establishment of long-term working relationships, creation of professional networks and improvement of awareness of the beneficiary country among EU Member States;
- conducting of trainings, improvement of professional abilities;
- development and implementation of adapted regulatory acts, what is a must for the implementation of the agreements reached between the beneficiary country and the EU (joint agreements, action plans, integration into the common European Union internal market);
- changes in organizational practices and culture, improvement of communication and coordination between the beneficiary authority and EU partners;
- achievement of additional (unplanned) results of close cooperation of public servants from EU member states with partners from beneficiary countries.
More information on Twinning projects you can find here
