Commission Report 2002 (Romania)

Twinning

The twinning process makes the vast body of Member States` expertise available to the candidate countries through the long-term secondment of civil servants and accompanying short-term expert missions and training.

A total of 503 twinning projects were funded by the Community between 1998 and 2001. Between 1998 and 2000, these projects primarily targeted the main priority sectors identified in the Accession Partnerships: agriculture, the environment, public finance, justice and home affairs and preparation for the management of Structural Funds. Since 2000, other important sectors of the acquis have also been addressed through twinning, such as social policy, the fight against drugs, transport, and telecommunications regulation. Twinning now covers all sectors of the acquis.

Thanks to the strong support of the EU Member States, 103 twinning partnerships were funded by Phare 1998, involving all the candidate countries and almost all the Member States. These first-generation projects have already come to an end. Under Phare 1999 a further 123 projects are currently being implemented and the programming exercise for Phare 2000 included a further 146 twinning projects. The 2001 programming exercise includes 131 twinning projects embracing all the Phare beneficiary countries, as well as Cyprus and Malta. Under the 2002 programming exercise, 119 twinning projects have already been planned and approved for implementation. A substantial number of additional twinning projects are planned, and these should be approved and implementation launched before the end of 2002. They include twinning projects identified in the Action Plans for strengthening administrative and judicial capacity in the negotiating countries. It is estimated that around 300 twinning projects are operational throughout the candidate countries at any one time. Furthermore, the candidate countries are being offered the a further way of drawing on Member States' expertise through ``Twinning light'', a mechanism to address carefully-circumscribed projects of limited scope which emerge during the negotiation process.

Under Phare 2001, Romania is implementing 12 twinning projects. Substantial support is being provided for public administration reform and customs. Projects are in place for the National Commission of Statistics, the phytosanitary administration and fisheries. Twinning will be used to develop the Integrated Border Management Strategy and support the institutional framework in the field of migration. Other twinning projects target road safety, waste management and SME policy. The National Bank of Romania as well as the Border Police have designed ``twinning light'' projects.

Special assistance for Romania through twinning is being prepared under the Phare 2002 programme and a total of 29 twinning projects are scheduled - the highest number of any Candidate Country.

Justice and home affairs will be the main area for twinning projects in 2002. A total of ten projects will address the issues of asylum, refugees, Schengen acquis, modernisation of the gendarmerie, and general strengthening judicial capacity. The Ministry of Finance is also a major beneficiary with six twinning projects to assist the implementation of its strategic plan. Two environmental projects (chemicals directives and VOC, LCP and SEVESO II legislation), three projects in the social and employment field (equal opportunities, social security of migrant workers and continued vocational training) and three projects for the internal market (customs, competition and insurance supervision) have been designed. Twinning will also be used to support the implementation of the acquis in the fields of animal nutrition and inland waterway transport. Finally, two projects were designed to prepare Romania for the management of structural funds.

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