TAIEX was established by Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) of the European Commission in 1996 in order to assist the candidate countries in the short term to solve the issues of introduction of EU legislation (acquis communautaire). In 2006, institutional building instrument TAIEX began to cover the neighboring southern and eastern countries. 
TAIEX supports public administrations with regard to the approximation, application and enforcement of EU legislation as well as facilitating the sharing of EU best practices.

• targeted expert assistance;
• increased focus on solving specific issues of development and integration;
• solving of the urgent issues based on the European experience and approaches;
• exchange of information and experience with the EU experts;
• establishment of bilateral relations;
• involving not only central public administrations but also regional institutions.

• to provide short term technical assistance and advice on the transposition of EU legislation into the national legislation of beneficiary countries and on the subsequent administration, implementation and enforcement of such legislation.
• to bring ENP partner countries closer to the European Union, through increased economic integration and a deepening of political cooperation by sharing the experience gained during the enlargement process.
• to provide technical training and peer assistance to partners and stakeholders of the beneficiary countries.
• to be an information broker by gathering and making available information.
• to provide database tools for facilitating and monitoring the approximation progress as well as to identify further technical assistance needs.

Technical assistance through the TAIEX instrument comes in many different forms and across a wide range of areas. Partner administrations can benefit from TAIEX’s flexibility to help meet wider training needs in EU legislation by reaching a significant number of officials. At the same time, it is important to retain an awareness of and be responsive to more targeted requests. In this regard, the expert and study visit format, depending entirely on requests received from beneficiary partners, provides a complementary institution building service.

Study visits are designed to provide short term assistance to beneficiary countries on the approximation and implementation of EU legislation. Study visits are visits made by a limited number of officials of the beneficiary countries to Member State administrations. They give an opportunity to the beneficiaries to work alongside Member State officials to discuss legislation, experience first-hand administrative procedures and infrastructure and see examples of best practices.

Expert missions on the other hand involve usually one or two Member State experts travelling to beneficiary partner countries. They provide an opportunity to discuss draft legislation, present examples of best practices and lend assistance where requested. The preferred format is working sessions involving an exchange of knowledge between the beneficiary countries and the experts.

The beneficiaries of TAIEX assistance include those sectors that have a role to play in the beneficiary countries in the transposition, implementation and enforcement of EU legislation or in the case of the ENPI countries, in deepening economic and political cooperation by sharing the experience gained during the enlargement process.

• civil servants working in public administrations at national level;
• the Judiciary and Law Enforcement authorities;
• parliaments and civil servants working in Parliaments and Legislative Councils;
• representatives of social partners, trade unions and employers’ associations.

TAIEX does not provide direct support to civil society, private citizens, or to individual companies.

For new countries – EU Member States TAIEX is used as after joining EU instrument but for the candidate countries and Western Balkans as the pre-accession instrument. For the countries of the European Neighborhood Policy TAIEX is used to support the implementation of the priorities defined by the Plan of Action, and Cooperation Agreements. The experts invited in the framework of TAIEX, are mainly public sector employees EU Member States working in the identical bodies of the beneficiary country.

Advantages of cooperation with TAIEX

• exchange of information regarding the EU legislation, national legislation, national / administrative practice;
• close cooperation with EU Member States;
• acquisition of interesting professional and personal experience.