Boosting co-operation through twinning

Twinning is a European Commission initiative that was originally designed to help candidate countries acquire the necessary skills and experience to adopt, implement and enforce EU legislation. Since 2003, twinning has been available to some of the Newly Independent States of eastern Europe and to countries of the Mediterranean region.

Twinning projects bring together public sector expertise from EU Member States and beneficiary countries with the aim of enhancing co-operative activities. They must yield concrete operational results for the beneficiary country under the terms of the Association Agreement between that country and the EU.

Please find the latest issues of Twinning News:

Twinning News N°31 - May, June, July 2013. Projects Pipeline pdf - 97 KB [97 KB]

Twinning News N°30 - February, March, April 2013. Projects Pipeline pdf - 105 KB [105 KB]

Twinning News Special Joint issue – per diem – January 2013 pdf - 308 KB [308 KB]

Twinning News N°29 - November, December 2012 and January 2013. Projects Pipeline pdf - 90 KB [90 KB]

Twinning News N°28 - August, September and October 2012. Projects Pipeline pdf - 79 KB [79 KB]

Twinning News Special Joint issue – per diem – July 2012 pdf - 147 KB [147 KB]

Twinning News N°27 - May, June and July 2012. Projects Pipeline pdf - 156 KB [156 KB]

Twinning News N°26 - February - March and April 2012. Projects Pipeline pdf - 89 KB [89 KB]

Twinning News Special Joint issue January 2012 pdf - 85 KB [85 KB]

Twinning News N°25 - Novembre - Decembre 2011 and January 2012. Projects Pipeline pdf - 90 KB [90 KB]

Twinning News N°24 - August- September and October 2011. Projects Pipeline pdf - 82 KB [82 KB]

Twinning News - Special Joint Issue – Per Diems 2nd Semester 2011- July 2011 pdf - 84 KB [84 KB]

Twinning News N°23 - May, June, July 2011 pdf - 90 KB [90 KB]

Twinning News N°22 - February, March - April 2011 pdf - 74 KB [74 KB]

Twinning News - Special Joint Issue - Per Diems First Semester 2011 - January 2011 pdf - 932 KB [932 KB]

Twinning News N°21 - November, December 2010 - January 2011 pdf - 75 KB [75 KB]

Twinning News N°20 - Third Quarter 2010 pdf - 73 KB [73 KB]

Twinning News - Special Joint Issue - Per Diems Second Semester 2010 - July 2010 pdf - 88 KB [88 KB]

Twinning News N°19 - Second Quarter 2010 pdf - 68 KB [68 KB]

Twinning News - 100th Project Awarded pdf - 64 KB [64 KB]

Twinning News N°18 - First Quarter 2010 pdf - 68 KB [68 KB]

Twinning news N°17 - December 2009 pdf - 131 KB [131 KB]

Work undertaken must also meet the requirements of an action plan written under the guidance of the EU’s New Neighbourhood Policy. All twinning projects must also have their own work plan and agreed budget. A detailed presentation of the twinning procedures are outlined in the Common Twinning Manual and the respective annexes:

Twinning Manual 2012 [520 KB] (valid for all contracts for which the official letter of notification of selection has been issued as from 2 April 2012)
Annexes [743 KB]

Twinning Manual 2009 [547 KB] (valid for all contracts for which the official letter of notification of selection has been issued as from 15 September 2009)
Annexes [751 KB]

Twinning Manual 2007 [497 KB] (valid for all Twinning contracts for which the official letter of notification of selection has been issued as from 01 September 2007)
Annexes [761 KB]

Twinning Manual 2005 [382 KB] (valid for all Twinning contracts for which the official letter of notification of selection has been issued as from 15 June 2005)
Annexes [510 KB]

For additional information, please read the brochure about the Twinning Cooperation in the Neighbouring Countries pdf - 336 KB [336 KB] and the Activity reports: Activity report 2011 pdf - 893 KB [893 KB] , Activity report 2010 pdf - 2 MB [2 MB] , Activity report 2009 [2 MB] and Activity report 2008 [2 MB] . You may also consult the webpage of the Directorate General for Enlargement on Twinning.

Twinning evaluation

1st Evaluation of the Institutional Twinning Instrument in the Countries covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy – Final report pdf - 7 MB [7 MB]

Transferring expertise

To set up projects, the Commission relies on the co-operation and administrative experience of Member States. They are expected to mobilise experts from government, local authorities and other public sector organisations.

Twinning projects are built around the secondment of at least one full-time Member State expert who then goes to work in a beneficiary country administration: they are called Resident Twinning Advisers (RTAs) and are accredited by the European Commission. Projects can also include a number of other actions, usually run by relevant public bodies, including workshops, training sessions, expert missions and counselling.

Neighbouring countries in which the Commission’s twinning initiative is available are:

South: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia.

East: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Gerogia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Read a concrete example of a Twinning project in Jordan pdf - 564 KB [564 KB] .

Twinning network:

Twinning National Contact Points pdf - 159 KB [159 KB] in Beneficiary Countries

Twinning National Contact Points pdf - 100 KB [100 KB] in Member States

Institution Building days 2012

The Annual Meeting for the Institution Building instruments, jointly organised by the Directorates-General Enlargement and Development and Cooperation - EuropeAid, brings together the National Contact Points (NCPs) for the Twinning, TAIEX and SIGMA instruments from the beneficiary partners and the 27 EU Member States.

Agenda pdf - 146 KB [146 KB]
Presentations:

Lessons learned - Christine Kivin [407 KB]
TAIEX dans le contexte de l'Instrument européen de Voisinage et de Partenariat (IEVP) - Christophe Ingels [715 KB]
Twinning in the European Neighbourhood - Christophe Ingels [584 KB]
Head of SIGMA Programme - Karen Hill [198 KB]
Interoperability of Institution Building Instruments - Marwan Al-Refai [152 KB]
The 2012 Revision of the Common Twinning Manual - Twinning Coordination Team [242 KB]
The Cycle of a TAIEX request - Nicolò Gasparini [2 MB]

Twinning principles

In addition to meeting requirements laid down in the EU’s agreements with third countries, twinning must also aim at developing structural reforms. At the end of a project, any new or adapted system must be self-sufficient and function under the auspices of the beneficiary country.

Projects must also include some elements relating to the adoption of EU legislation. An approximation to the acquis communautaire is called for, rather than full integration of EU legislation as was demanded of the candidate countries.

The local partner in a twinning should be represented by a public body that is capable of working with a Member State organisation which has a similar structure and function. The beneficiary country partner must be able to adapt and take on board change: the twinning project is not about the EU providing one-way technical assistance.