1.2. institutional framework of twinning operations in armenia - PAO

GUIDELINES ON TWINNING INSTRUMENT FOR PROGRAMME ADMINISTRATION AGENCY
1. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT TWINNING
1.1. TWINNING BACKGROUND
Twinning is an institutional building tool which provides direct exchange of specific national
experience in a specific field in EU legislation implementation between a Public Administration in a
BC and the equivalent institution in an EU Member State.
The Twinning programme was established in 1998 to assist candidate countries in their efforts to
strengthen their administrative and institutional capacity in preparation for membership in the EU. It
was conceived as an instrument for targeted administrative cooperation assisting the candidate
countries in strengthening their administrative and legal capacity to implement Community
legislation. The Twinning programme gained new impetus when it was extended to countries
neighbouring the EU.
After the EU adopted the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) in 2005, in the aftermath of the
enlargement of the EU to 10 new Member States, this new policy gave new opportunities of
cooperation for EU neighboring countries, including Armenia. In November 2006, the EC and
Armenia adopted and signed the EU-Armenia ENP Action Plan, which is a political document
laying out the strategic objectives of the cooperation between Armenia and the EU. This Action
Plan was designed to help fulfill the provisions in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement
(PCA), signed in 1999, and to build ties in new areas, in order to encourage and support Armenia’s
objective of further integration into European economic and social structures. Since the beginning
of 2007, the European Commission decided to keep only one instrument to finance cooperation,
which is the ENPI. Implementation of the Action Plan has the objective of significantly advancing
the approximation of Armenia’s legislation, norms and standards to those of the EU, and
furthermore to help to devise and implement policies and measures to promote economic growth
and social cohesion, to reduce poverty, and to protect the environment, thereby contributing to
reaching the long-term objective of sustainable development. In 2007, European Neighbourhood
and Partnership Instruments – Budget Support, Twinning, TAIEX, SIGMA etc. - became available
for Armenia. These instruments are targeted at legal framework reforms and capacity building of
Armenia’s public administration system.
The aim of Twinning is to upgrade/modernize the institutions of the BC at central, regional and
local levels, through training and reorganization as well as drafting of laws and regulations
modeled after the EU “Acquis communautaire”. The fundamental principle of the Twinning project1
is that it must yield mandatory results.
Twinning projects are built around jointly agreed EU policy objectives and are based on a small
number of basic principles:
� BC – in liaison with the EC- chooses its EU MS partner 2 (s), after a competitive procedure
based only on the quality of the proposal;
� Twinning projects must yield a concrete operational result in terms of the BA 3 meeting a
requirement in connection with the EU Acquis or other EU policies open for co-operation;
1 Please see the explanation of the relevant numbered term used in the text in Glossary.
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