Twinning Projects

Saturday, 25 October 2008 12:18

What is a twinning project ?

The word “twinning” derives from English word “twin” meaning “two identical objects/subjects” and is generally used for description of a peer-to-peer cooperation. The idea is to help an administration from a Beneficiary Country to approximate its standards, legislation and good practices to those used in the equivalent administration of a Member State, through a twinning project.

A twinning project will put together the two administrations, in order:

• to increase common knowledge and understanding of standards used in each of them
• to approximate these standards and good practices to the ones of the Member State and more generally to the acquis communautaire
• to develop a cooperation which will lead to significant and sustainable changes in the Beneficiary country administration.

A twinning project will follow key principles

• The main objective of Twinning projects is achievement of concrete and operational results in the beneficiary country relating to the harmonisation with EU legislation.

• A twinning project entails elements of institutional and structural reforms. At the end of the project, the new system must function under the sole responsibility and means of the beneficiary country.

• The beneficiary country undertakes to implement and finance the necessary reforms, while a Member State undertakes to ensure assistance to the said process for the time of duration of a project concerned.

• Partnership approach is fundamental to the achievement of the guaranteed results. The accountability for achievements is two-sided. Both the Beneficiary Administration and the EU partner commit themselves to work towards commonly agreed mandatory results, which should be measurable and precise.

This institutional building tool was initially developed in 1998 for candidate countries to European Integration to acquire and implement the acquis communautaire (EU legislation), it was enlarged in 2005 to neighbourhood countries, such as Ukraine.