For reference: In 1998 the European Commission suggested the Twinning instrument implementation to the candidate countries for the European Union (the EU) accession in order to support their integration. During the Twinning projects implementation, approximately 2 thousand projects have been realized in the candidate countries.
According to the evaluation of the European Commission (hereinafter – the EC), Ukraine is considered to be one of the leaders among the countries of the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (16 countries) in accordance with the number of completed Twinning projects as well as the projects that are at the stage of implementation.
Basic Characteristic Features of the Twinning Instrument:
- Participants. Ministries, other central executive authorities, state collegial authorities, authorities of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, shaping and implementing state policy in the relevant spheres of public administration;
- Tender Procedure. The competitive selection procedure of the partner institution of the EU Member States. For this purpose, the special tender procedure is conducted;
- Time frameworks. The period of preparation of the Twinning project (from project proposal drafting to the contract signing) takes on the average 1 - 1, 5 years and the period of realization takes 1 - 2 years;
- Financing. Twinning projects are of the type of the EC grant and they are implemented according to the established procedures and rules.
Three Main Components of Cooperation within the Framework of Twinning Projects Implementation:
- Legislative: support to the governmentauthority in development and review of the existing legislation as well as internal rules, procedures, instructions etc.;
- Institutional Development: support to the governmentauthority in its institutional capacity strengthening trough conducting functional review by the European experts and/ or comparative analysis of the existing institutional structure of the governmentauthority;
- Studying: providing training for representatives of the governmentauthority (seminars and training courses conducted by foreign experts), organization of study tours and internship for representatives of the governmentauthority of Ukraine, organization of conferences, round table discussions etc.
The benefits of the Twinning Instrument are:
- it is not traditional technical assistance as far as it stipulates cooperation between civil servants of similar government authorities, and it is aimed at the achievement of the required results by means of common efforts of the partners from the EU Member States and the beneficiary body;
- providing expertise and giving pieces of advice in the relevant sphere of public administration, personnel training, assistance in drafting legislation and its approximation to the acquis communautaire;
- it doesn’t copy the system of the EU Member States but carries out its adaptation to the existing conditions for their efficient functioning in Ukraine;
- it promotes its approximation to the EU standards;
- the project implementation is realized with the help of the Resident Twinning Advisor (hereinafter – RTA) who is the civil servant of the EU Member State or is likened to him and is sent on a business trip for the period of the project realization to the beneficiary country.
