FAQ

The main difference is that in Twinning, assistance to Ukrainian public administrations is provided by civil servants of the same type of public administrations from the European countries - while in other types of technical assistance, the service providers are/may be private firms and private consultants. Twinning is a direct exchange of experience and knowledge, based on partnership and cooperation between two or more Twinning organisations. In Twinning, civil servant communicates with civil servant. A Resident Twinning Advisor from a partner EU country is selected because he/she has significant professional experience of work in the given topic of the project. He/she must have been a practitioner in the given subject in his home country, which means that important preconditions of success in Twinning are included in the system itself. Another important difference is that it is the Ukrainian ministry or agency that decides about nearly everything, including whether they wish to implement a Twinning project or not; the design of the project and about all main aspects of its implementation, provided by Terms of Reference and Common Twinning Manual. It is the Ukrainian partner, who decides, together with EC, which country will be selected to implement the project from those who apply. All this means that the Ukrainian Beneficiaries’ side has increased rights together with increased obligations in Twinning projects as compared with other ‘classical’ forms of TA.

Twinning proved its efficiency as one of the most important tools for institution building in the countries of Central Europe where to date more than 1,600 Twinning projects have been implemented. The main benefits are the following: Twinning helps to implement reforms; to increase quality and standards of public service provided for citizens; to utilize best practices of European public administrations. It promotes joining European professional networks; building partnerships with representatives of European civil service. It improves credibility of Ukrainian administrations both abroad and in the home country. Twinning opens good perspectives for Ukrainian public administrations and organisations to improve their work and to make real steps towards progress.

Development of relations with neighboring countries of the European Union is a priority for the EU. In the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy new forms of assistance are to be utilized including Twinning and TAIEX. Institutions of the EU Member States are interested in establishing long-term and structural working relationships with their colleagues, hence from such relationship both sides can only benefit. Sharing European values approaches and behavioral standards are making such cooperation steady and long-standing.

There are around 90 institutions from 18 EU countries that have participated in 20 Twinning project competitions to date. The most active participants have so far been Germany and France. Austrian, Italian, Polish, Hungarian and Swedish partner institutions have been very active. Beyond them, we have institutions working in Ukraine from Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Denmark, Latvia, Romania, and Greece. Overall, we can establish that the interest towards Ukraine is high – but also measures must be taken to maintain and develop it.

Since Twinning is only one of the forms of assistance to Ukraine by the EU, it can only pave the way in certain directions. Membership depends on high-level policies and frameworks, hence Twinning is not a direct way to promote EU membership. It is only one of the means for assistance but not a decisive one.

The entire body of European laws is known as the Acquis Communautaire (acquis). This includes all the treaties, regulations and directives passed by the European institutions as well as judgments laid down by the Court of Justice. All new European Union countries had to approximate their national laws to the acquis and implement EU directives to the national laws. The national laws are subordinated to the acquis. In case of conflicts between two or more EU countries the acquis is taken as the legal base. To avoid conflict situations certain level of acquis approximation is required from those who apply to become candidate countries and consequently EU Member States. Twinning is one of the institutional building instruments to help beneficiary countries to harmonize, approximate and implement acquis. There is no one EU Member State (old or new) which had approximated 100% its national laws to the acquis. The fact that Twinning is focused on the acquis, generally makes it possible to identify specific targets and to deliver the means to achieve them.  For example, the object of a Twinning might be to help a beneficiary country implement value-added tax (VAT) or to have its veterinary or border control service functioning according to the same standards as those in the Member States. 

Nothing in life is simple. If one wants to achieve sustainable results, both initiative thinking and hard work is necessary. Twinning is a complex task. It requires a serious preparatory phase to clarify what, when, where, by whom, for how much and how will be produced. Both the priorities and the implementation mechanisms must be clarified by the end of the identification and the planning phases. The countries of the EU must be aware about the situation in Ukraine in detail to decide whether to become a partner to a Ukrainian ministry. When comes the selection and contracting phase two or more partners prepare a Joint Work Plan and agree on every detail amongst themselves and with the donor - European Commission. The Contract signed by the Parties must clearly fix all the obligations together with the rights. Only then the implementation can start. In addition to all these partly procedural and obligatory issues we believe that it is crucially important that by the time implementation of a Twinning project begins not only one-two leaders of the respective host ministry but also the key specialists planned to work in the Twinning project know exactly the objectives and results to be achieved during the project together with details of the methodology and their respective roles in the implementation. Such a structured and sometimes complex process may seem complicated. However, all those steps are necessary that are regarded as pre-conditions of success.

The Twinning coordination mechanisms are similar in every country. There is a mechanism on the side of the donor - EU, and there is a mechanism established in the beneficiary country - Ukraine. On the side of the donor, it is the European Commission that decides about the main aspects of Twinning, including financing and contracting issues. On the Ukrainian side, Twinning is coordinated by Twinning Programme Administration Office. This Office in Ukraine has been established at the Main Department of Civil Service of Ukraine. The overall planning of Twinning and its priorities are approved by a Twinning Programme Coordination Group, which consists of representatives of  EU Delegation, National Coordination Unit at the Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Main Department of Civil Service of Ukraine. At every Ministry special Twinning Focal Point has been or is being nominated, whose task is to initiate and coordinate Twinning project issues within their own ministry and agency. It must be mentioned that in most of the ministries being at late stage of Twinning preparation Twinning Working Groups have been established that are continuously informed and trained to become appropriate Twinning partners.

Yes, it will be, but only in longer term perspectives. The connection between Twinning and the everyday life of the Ukrainian citizens is not direct, although in some cases, like changing laws, regulations and standards Twinning is impacting everyday life. Overall, once work of the Ukrainian Civil Service will improve it must have significant impacts on life of Ukrainian citizens. In the case of the Twinning project aimed at improving road safety or aiming at approximation of Ukrainian standards to the EU ones, or the project on Public Internal Financial Control, the relationship is more evident and clear.

The first step in every Twinning project is the assessment by the beneficiary country of its needs focusing in particular on the national priority areas, action set in EU – Ukraine Association Agenda and ENPI financial programme.  This “needs assessment” forms part of the annual programming exercise which is designed to match the priorities for action identified by the beneficiary country with the financial assistance available from the EU.

Member States are invited to propose ways of addressing the needs identified in project fiches (call for proposals).Offers of assistance are sent to the beneficiary countries and after discussion between all the parties (selection meeting) the beneficiary administration chooses the offer which best corresponds to its needs.  In some cases, two, exceptionally three, Member States may join to provide assistance in consortium or the beneficiary country may invite Member States offering different elements to combine them in a single project.

No, Ukrainian partners do not receive any financial means directly. On the opposite: since they themselves have initiated Twinning, they themselves bear some costs during implementation of the Twinning projects (co-financing in a form of equipped premises for RTA and STEs). It is however the EC that finances the costs of involving European partners as well as the costs of participation of Ukrainians in the cooperation, such as travel costs to EU countries, costs of organisation of conferences in the EU and Ukraine and others. What is important to emphasize: Twinning is a ‘joint venture’. Both parties are putting in resources and both receive benefits. In the end it is the EU-Ukraine cooperation and the respective societies benefiting from improved public sector services they receive.

We believe that progressive leaders in Ukraine are seriously interested in progressing and improving their own work. Twinning provides support for speeding up ongoing civil service reforms. It may provide new approaches and solutions, to address the huge tasks the Ukrainian administration faces. It also provides methodological support, not only in sectoral issues but also in most important general ones, such as assessing real situation at an institution, identification of priorities, increasing foreign language capacities and many others. Overall, Twinning promotes implementation of both short-term and strategic goals of the EU - Ukraine partnership. There is a need however to increase motivation of participants from Ukrainian side, which is a task of Ukrainian party.

Twinning provides not only technical and administrative assistance (please, note that we do not talk about financial assistance) to the beneficiary countries. It also helps to build long-term relationship between beneficiary country and Member States and brings beneficiary country into wider contact with the diversity of practice in the EU.  

The advantages from the Twinning project for the beneficiary institutions could be seen in:

• Presentation and creation of image of the beneficiary institution among respective EU institutions;
• Through positive presentation of the institution image of Ukraine arises in EU respective institutions and Member States;
• Beneficiary institution becomes acquainted with respective institutions in EU and is “written” among them as “new colleague” or partner;
• Beneficiary institution gains knowledge and expertise from Member State institution to benefit from positive experience and diminish weaknesses in the reforming process;
• When the Twinning project is ended the new “friendship” of twins institution could continue in next Twinning project, Technical Assistance project, Twinning light project or other bilateral even multilateral cooperation;
• Professional development of the employees through involvement in Twinning project implementation is institution’s development as well as in term of personal capacity building;
• The “know-how purchase” is paid by beneficiary institution only partially through co-financing from Ministerial sources provision of equipped premises for RTA and STEs.

Yes, they are paid for their work within their own salaries and other Ukrainian incentives. They are not paid from the project budgets. They receive benefits in other ways, like enhanced knowledge and experience, study visits to European countries and bigger motivation to achieve progress. 

Provided sufficient human resources in the beneficiary institution are available and relevant coordination mechanism is established it is possible that different Twinning projects can be implemented in the same Ministry at the same time.

Twinning projects envisage secondment of EU experts, known as Resident Twinning Advisers (RTAs) to the beneficiary countries.  They are made available for a period of, at least, twelve consecutive months to work on Twinning project in the corresponding Ministry/Institution in a beneficiary country. RTAs are supported by a (Senior) Project Leader in their home administration responsible for ensuring the overall thrust of the project implementation and coordinating all expertise input from partner Member State. In order to achieve the objective of the twinning project, it is necessary to combine different means including medium-term and short-term experts.

All experts involved are practitioners from the EU public administrations with required professional background and working experience on approximation, implementation and use of respective part of acquis communautaire or in required field.

A network of National Contact Points has been established to work with the Commission in the twinning process.  Each Member State and each beneficiary country has appointed a person - National Contact Point to liaise with their own administrations and to ensure the flow of information through international Twinning network.

Each beneficiary institution appoints a person - Focal Point responsible for the technical implementation of Twinning project(s) implemented in their institution. The Focal Point plays the most important role within the beneficiary institution as decision-maker during the twining project preparation and implementation on behalf of the beneficiary institution. That is why the Focal Point must be a person with certain rank within the institution and must have high professional background. He/she is the one who accepts Project Fiche on behalf of the beneficiary institution, sends nominations for members of  selection/evaluation committees and gives his/her approval of MS experts performance and the interim results of the project.   

The purpose of Twinning projects is strengthening of administrative capacity of public institutions and transposition of acquis communautaire. That is the reason why Twinning projects are usually implemented by state administrations. Although in some Member States part of state administration functions are fulfilled by non administrative bodies. Therefore in some cases the necessary experience for the beneficiary country can be received from mandated institutions. As a result, the European Commission (EC) has determined the criteria under which these institutions can be qualified as mandated bodies and set up the List of Mandated Bodies authorized to take part in the implementation of Twinning projects. The list is available at the EC Twinning home page.

Beneficiary institution must prepare adequate conditions for RTA during his/her secondment at the beneficiary country and provide them free of any charge:

• Appropriate office space and logistics
• Technical equipment for his/her work duties (computer, phone, fax, internet access)
• Technical equipment for twinning activities (overhead projector, slides, notebook, sound equipment as necessary etc.)
• Office equipment (papers, pens, files, dictionaries etc.)
• Good cooperation and communication during his/her secondment
• Access to information  - Act as counterpart at the beneficiary institution

This is part of the co-financing in kind to be provided by the beneficiary.

Twinning Light can be used to tackle any self-contained institutional issues provided the subject addressed is of more limited scope than for standard Twinning, i.e. the structures needed are not complex or the existing ones need little adjustment. The likeliest scenario would be implementation of a specific measure - creation of an Insurance Supervisory Authority or Roads Inspectorate, for instance - rather than reform of the general or legal framework. The programming of twinning light projects should therefore be accurate and timely. Twinning Light projects should not be used to supplement full Twinning projects, which are self-contained and involve the obligation to deliver their own mandatory result.

Twinning Light consists of the provision by a MS of well-defined public sector expertise, generally involving the delivery of short or medium term experts. Given their limited scope and duration, Twinning Light projects fall short of building longer term structural links between public administrations, which is indeed one of the broader objectives of standard Twinning.

The Twinning Light package may, where necessary, include additional inputs such as:

• appraisal of regulatory texts and the supply of documentation;
• workshops, seminars and visits;
• interpretation and translation related to the preceding items.

Twinning Light is “lighter” form of Twinning. The beneficiary institution could be any institution eligible for traditional Twinning.

The implementation period of a traditional Twinning project is at least 12 months and it envisages the presence of RTA. Twinning Light project is a small scale project lasting maximum 8 months. The funding doesn’t exceed EUR 250 000 and it envisages only short term or medium term experts (absence of an RTA).  Additionally there is no detailed Work Plan to be jointly drafted by the partners. Instead of it the beneficiary institution drafts Project Fiche, where project objectives and activities are foreseen. This approach facilitates the endorsement of the project in a shorter period of time. There are neither private sector services nor supplies allowed, except for translation and interpretation. Consortium of several Member States is also forbidden. Member State is chosen as a result of a tender. Tenderers do not take part in the evaluation process. Evaluation of proposals is purely based on the documents submitted – written proposals. Twinning Light contracts are prepared by the Contracting Authority (EUD).

Yes, it would be much better to start a specific Twinning project at a time when the beneficiaries already have a general vision on Twinning shared by all those who will participate in the project. Furthermore, knowledge and skills on such practical issues as how to build relations with an RTA and other foreign partners (experts), how to produce specific documents, how to communicate properly, how to behave in different situations in general, and many other topics – can make the Twinning process much faster and easier for all participants. Training before Twinning project starts improves mutual understanding a lot; it facilitates joint work from the very beginning and saves precious time for both partners during project implementation.