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The twinning, an enlargement tool

Ivo SCHUTTE, twinning project manager, Twinning Unity - DG Enlargement

11 / What happens during a typical institutional twinning project between a member country of the EU and a Candidate country? Who are the actors involved?

Twinning is an initiative launched by the European Commission in 1998 in the context of the preparation for enlargement of the European Union. It is an instrument for targeted administrative cooperation in order to help Candidate and potential Candidate countries to strengthen their administrative and judicial capacity to implement Community legislation as future Member States of the Union European.

Twinning projects are built around objectives of jointly agreed EU policies, including preparing the program of enlarging the EU, further strengthening the administrative capacity of the new Member States and improving cooperation in accordance with policies of the EU. Twinning projects are based on a number of fundamental principles:

• In general, beneficiary countries select their partners among the Member States; • The selected Member State undertakes to transfer the practical expertise available in the public sector in its national administration. This mainly includes the secondment of an official from public sector who will work full time in the beneficiary administration for a minimum period of twelve months; • Twinning projects must provide the recipient with a concrete operational result (“the obligatory result\") in connection with the acquis communautaire and other EU policies open to cooperation; • The twinning partners are committed to achieving the required result and not only to provide the means to achieve it. Following the project, a new system or an adequate system must operate under the sole responsibility of the recipient country which retains ownership of the project;

• Twinning is a joint project in which each partner assumes his responsibilities. The recipient agrees to undertake and finance reforms, while the Member State to provide the process for the project;
• In order to support the credibility of their commitment, the partners develop a detailed work plan before the project begins. This plan can be adapted to the implementation, but must provide clear reference points for close monitoring of progress to the final result.
• The results of a twinning project (obligatory results) should be maintained as a permanent asset in the beneficiary administration even after the implementation of the Twinning project. This presupposes the establishment by the beneficiary administration of effective mechanisms to consolidate and disseminate the project results.
• To ensure transparency of procedures and equal treatment for all bidders’ administration, calls for proposals will be forwarded only to the national twinning contact points designated in the administrations of Member States.



2 / In your experience, what are the countries which are most active in twinning initiatives and institution building?



As I already mentioned, the twinning was launched in the context of the fifth enlargement of the European Union, and the instrument has been used extensively to help the 12 new Member States in their preparations for the implementation of European legislation. In Poland, a total of 193 projects had been implemented and 105 projects in Czech Republic. In Romania and Bulgaria the use of the instrument of twinning was more intensive: a total of 242 projects in Romania, from which 68 are being implemented right now, and 170 projects in Bulgaria, where 60 projects are being implemented

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3/ Is the Financing Agreement obligatory to be obtained before starting a twinning project?

A financing agreement is concluded between the Commission and the beneficiary State annually. No project can be launched until this agreement is signed.




4/ Are the ex post reports systematically applied to each twinning project or rather a certain number per year and per country?



An assessment is requested depending on the recipient country on an ad hoc basis, resulting in a number of evaluations per year and per country. There are also several assessments of the twinning instrument in general. They all are available on our website.