• European Commission
• Enlargement
• How does it work?
• Technical assistance

Technical Assistance

Adopting and implementing the EU acquis requires a modern and sophisticated administration and set of institutions, as well as a professional and politically neutral judiciary.

Technical assistance can consist in the transfer of 'know how' or direct investments. It is available to candidate and potential candidate countries, as well as the Turkish Cypriot Community in the northern part of Cyprus. It aims to address weaknesses at the central, regional and local level, with an emphasis on promoting economic and social cohesion.

Significant resources are allocated for this purpose and are mainly deployed in three ways: through TAIEX, Twinning and SIGMA.
The Technical Assistance and Information Exchange Instrument (TAIEX) supports partner countries with regard to the approximation, application and enforcement of EU legislation. It is largely demand driven and facilitates the delivery of appropriate tailor-made expertise to address issues at short notice.

TAIEX’ main tasks are:

• 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 ENPI 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.
• As with other TAIEX training formats, experts and 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.

Twinning projects involve the secondment of EU experts, known as Resident Twinning Advisors (RTA) to the acceding, candidate and potential candidates, to provide support with specific projects.

The RTAs are made available for a period of at least one year to work on a project in the corresponding ministry in the beneficiary country. They are supported by a senior project leader in their Member State’s home administration, who is responsible for ensuring implementation and coordinating the Member State’s input. In addition to the RTA, their means are used to achieve a successful objective, including short-term expertise, training, translation and interpreting services and specialised IT assistance.

Twinning projects are designed to provide specific support to beneficiary countries in implementing areas of the EU acquis. Projects are selected in line with the priority areas identified by the Commission. In addition to technical and administrative assistance, Twinning also helps to build long-term relationships between existing and future Member States and brings all beneficiary countries into wider contact with the diversity of practice inside the EU.

Twinning Light

Twinning Light bridges the gap between the short-term assistance provided by the TAIEX instrument and the longer-term secondments of Member State experts provided through Twinning. A flexible tool for medium-term assignments, Twinning Light makes available the expertise of Member State civil servants for assignments of up to six months, with possible but limited extensions. Unlike Resident Twinning Advisors, these civil servants do not need to be permanently located in the beneficiary country. The procedures for these assignments are a simplified form of those currently used under Twinning - and are similarly aimed at addressing a specific action with regard to adopting the EU acquis.

A joint initiative of the OECD and the European Commission but principally financed by the EU, SIGMA provides assistance in horizontal areas of public management (public administrative reform, public procurement, public sector ethics and anti-corruption initiatives, and external and internal financial control). SIGMA’s main goals are to assess the progress in reforms, to assist beneficiary administrations to establish good public-sector practice and procedures, and to lend complementary support as required to other donor-assistance actions. SIGMA targets public administrations with the aim of helping beneficiary countries to meet baseline conditions for a reliable, professional civil service operating in an appropriate legal framework.

Technical Assistance involving Investment

Technical Assistance involving physical investment focuses on supporting alignment with EU norms and standards. It targets key regulatory institutions, located anywhere in the beneficiary country, which are in need of new or upgraded equipment and infrastructure in order to monitor and enforce the EU acquis effectively
Investment in the regulatory infrastructure is only made on the basis of a clear-cut government strategy on public administration reform, modernisation and governance, supported as necessary by Technical Assistance involving the transfer of ‘know-how’.