TAIEX and Twinning: Activities suspended because of coronavirus

The coronavirus pandemic has major implications on the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange (TAIEX) instrument and Twinning activities. The European Commission has cancelled TAIEX events until the summer, and solutions are sought concerning individual Twinning projects in different countries.

Far-reaching implications on activities

In the current situation, the European Commission considers that a Twinning project can be suspended for a certain period of time or it can be continued remotely, if it is deemed that this could help in promoting the objectives of the project to a sufficient extent. As concerns Resident Twinning Advisers (RTA), who are seconded to coordinate projects’ day-to-day activities, decisions on their stay in the beneficiary country or the need to send them home will be made case by case.

Finland is currently participating in 11 Twinning projects in nine countries. Expert missions are not carried out to the beneficiary countries for the time being.

The exceptional situation shows in a considerable decrease in the number of Twinning projects opened for a call for proposal. However, Finland has continued to submit tenders actively and been awarded contracts in two Twinning projects this year.

The impacts of the coronavirus outbreak affect not only Twinning activities but TAIEX instruments suffer from them, too. The European Commission has cancelled all TAIEX events until the end of May. It is possible that events will be cancelled even after that.

Solutions depend on the situation

The European Commission has called for flexible and practical solutions. EU delegations are working together with the contracting partners to find out how to continue the Twinning activities in this situation. The Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) has also informed about flexibility arrangements and options deviating from the provisions of the Twinning Manual(Link to another website.) to facilitate the situation.

The European Commission is trying to find new dates for the TAIEX events that were cancelled in March and April. Additionally, DG NEAR is looking into the option of convening virtual TAIEX events.

The current situation may lead to entirely new innovations. The European Commission and the EU Member States have discussed the possibility of providing accelerated technical support to partner countries to help them fight the coronavirus pandemic. In this connection, TAIEX has been mentioned as one of the possible instruments. Should this initiative materialise, it could mean that TAIEX events that were cancelled because of coronavirus, might be organised in the course of the spring.

TAIEX and Twinning are instruments funded by the European Union to develop the administration and legislation of the beneficiary countries. The activities are mainly carried out in the EU enlargement and neighbourhood policy countries. All activities under these instruments are based on close cooperation between the EU Member States and beneficiary countries.

In Finland, the instruments are coordinated by the National Twinning and TAIEX Coordination Team at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.  Follow the team on their Twitter account @Twinning_FI.