On February 06-07, 2018 in Brussels (the Kingdom of Belgium) the Annual Meeting of the National Contact Points for the Institution Building Instruments Twinning, TAIEX and SIGMA programme “Institution Building Days – 2018” organised by the Directorate General Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (Directorate General) was held.
The Institutional Building Days provide a powerful platform for exchanging best practices for the implementation and use of institutional building instruments in the countries of the European Neighborhood Instrument, made a comprehensive review of the measures implemented under the instruments, as well as discussing key priorities of partner countries in the context of the EU assistance.
Katarina Mathernova, Deputy Director General in charge of Eastern Neighbourhood, economic transformation and relations with IFIs, Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations in her opening remark greeted all the participants of the event and congratulated the participants on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the implementation of the Twinning and TAIEX instruments, and also emphasized the importance of holding annual meetings that would enable the exchange of experience in the area of reforming government institutions of the countries of the European Neighborhood Instrument in accordance with the EU standards through the involvement of technical assistance instruments. In addition, the updated priorities of the EU Eastern Partnership Initiative were outlined.
During the first day of the event, Wojciech Zieliński, Senior Adviser on Public Service and Human Resource Management of SIGMA Programme presented the Principles of Public Administration of the SIGMA Programme and outlined the main approaches and technical aspects of the future evaluation of public administration in Ukraine. Victoria Brich, Cooperation Assistant, Horizontal Issues and Reporting of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, in her turn, presented the main achievements of institutional building instruments Twinning and TAIEX implementation.
The second day of the event was devoted to discussion of the issue of implementation of institutional building instruments Twinning and TAIEX, in particular, a new vision of their use, the main approaches and innovations within the framework of attracting the Twinning instrument were presented to enhance its efficiency and effectiveness.
The Head of the Institution Building Team, the TAIEX, Twinning instruments, Unit “C3”, the Directorate General of the European Commission for Neighborhood and Negotiation for Enlargement Klaus Lech, staged during his speech a step-by-step description of the new Twinning implementation process and identified three key components for its effective use, that is to ensure improvement of legislation within the framework of public administration, openness of the EU foreign aid attraction system and orientation towards the best European practices. At the same time, the importance of organizing an information campaign based on the results of cooperation between project partners from the EU Member States and beneficiary countries was emphasized.
The “Institution Building Days – 2018” was attended by representatives of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom; Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey; Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Moldova, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia and Ukraine, the Turkish Cypriot community.
The Head of the Twinning Coordination Division of the Projects Management Unit of the Center for Adaptation of Civil Service to the Standards of the European Union Yuliia Fedyna took part in “Institutional Building Days – 2018”.
