Other EU Instruments open for BiH (TAIEX, P2P, LAF, IfS)

I. TAIEX

What TAIEX means?
Technical Assistance and Information Exchange Instrument

What TAIEX does?
TAIEX shares Member State administrations’ technical expertise in all fields of EU legislation and regulation (the so-called EU ‘acquis’) with beneficiaries

Policy objectives

TAIEX is the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange instrument of the European Commission implemented by the Institutional Building unit of Directorate General – Enlargement (DG ELARG). TAIEX can be delivered to a single or a group of countries, depending on the need identified. It is largely demand driven and channels requests for assistance and contributes to the delivery of appropriate tailor-made expertise to address problems at short notice.

TAIEX, a typical pre-accession instrument, represented the first practical measure linked to the official recognition of the aspirations of the Western Balkans to join the Union.
In June 2004, TAIEX was fully operational and started organising a series of introductory multi-country seminars on the Acquis for the benefit of the administrations of the Western Balkan countries within the Stabilisation and Association Process framework.

What services does TAIEX offer?
TAIEX’s main tasks are:

  • To provide short term technical assistance and advice on the transposition of EU legislation into the national legislation of beneficiary countries and on the subsequent administration, implementation and enforcement of such legislation.
  • To bring ENPI (European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument) partner countries closer to the European Union, through increased economic integration and a deepening of political cooperation by sharing the experience gained during the enlargement process.
  • To provide technical training and peer assistance to partners and stakeholders of the beneficiary countries.
  • To be an information broker by gathering and making available information.
  • To provide database tools for facilitating and monitoring the approximation progress as well as to identify further technical assistance needs.
  • Technical assistance through the TAIEX instrument comes in many different forms and across a wide range of areas. Partner administrations can benefit from TAIEX’s flexibility to help meet wider training needs in EU legislation by reaching a significant number of officials. At the same time, it is important to retain an awareness of and be responsive to more targeted requests. In this regard, the expert and study visit format, depending entirely on requests received from beneficiary partners, provides a complementary institution building service.

Which activities TAIEX covers:

  • Workshops
    EU member State experts go to the beneficiary to give a workshop or seminar providing an overview of specific areas of EU legislation, regulation, procedures and best practices to a broad group of officials from the beneficiary’s administration.
  • Expert missions
    One or two experts from an EU Member State are sent to the beneficiary to provide in house, in-depth advice on the transposition of a specific part of EU legislation, regulation, procedures and best practices. In general, an expert mission takes up to five working days to work intensively with a smaller group of experts in the beneficiary’s administration on a specific topic or piece of legislation/implementation.
  • Study visits
    A group of three practitioners from a beneficiary’s administration go on study visit to an EU Member State lasting up to five days. The aim is to learn how to implement a specific part of EU legislation and above all to study best practices. Study visits focus on technical questions relating to implementation of acquis.

Who are the Beneficiaries of TAIEX assistance?
The TAIEX mandate to provide assistance covers the following groups of beneficiary countries:

  • Croatia, Iceland, Turkey, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia;
  • Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo (as defined in UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of 10 June 1999);
  • Turkish Cypriot community in the northern part of Cyprus;
  • Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia, Ukraine and Russia.

The beneficiaries of TAIEX assistance includes those sectors, both public and private, who have a role to play in the beneficiary countries in the transposition, implementation and enforcement of EU legislation or in the case of the ENPI countries, in deepening economic and political cooperation by sharing the experience gained during the enlargement process.

The main target groups are:

  • Civil servants working in public administrations; at national and sub-national level and in associations of local authorities;
  • The Judiciary and Law Enforcement authorities;
  • Parliaments and civil servants working in Parliaments and Legislative Councils;
  • Professional and commercial associations representing social partners, as well as representatives of trade unions and employers’ associations;
  • Interpreters, revisers and translators of legislative texts.

TAIEX does not provide direct support to private citizens, or to individual companies.

How to apply

A request for TAIEX assistance must come from the public administration.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Coordinator for TAIEX assistance is the Directorate for European Integration (DEI), which, in liaison with the final beneficiary institution, applies for TAIEX assistance. The contact e-mail at the DEI is:  taiexbih@dei.gov.ba

Applications can be sent to TAIEX through the TAIEX website, where you will find application forms for the different forms of assistance TAIEX offers (Request for expertise/study visit/workshop).
When you make your application, it is important to remember that the assistance you are applying for should relate to the priorities defined by the European Partnership and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement. It is also useful if you can mention the relevant EU legislation that the application refers to. A well prepared and detailed application has a higher likelihood of being accepted.
The applicant will receive notification of registration once the application has been received and registered.

Assessment of applications

All applications are submitted to the EU Delegation and the competent Commission services for their opinion. The final decision is taken by the Institution Building unit of DG ELARG, responsible for the implementation of the TAIEX instrument.

You will receive an answer to your application as soon as the application has gone through this consultation process. From submission of the application, it will take on average a minimum of eight weeks for the dispatch of an expert and about 12 weeks for the organisation of a seminar/workshop.

Logistics

When the dates of the TAIEX workshop/seminar/expert mission/study visit have been fixed and all experts/speakers identified, TAIEX will pass the file to the external service provider, at present GTZ (the GTZ is responsible for the organisation, booking and paying of daily subsistence allowance and travel & accommodation costs to participants, meeting facilities, interpretation services as necessary, etc. and will contact participants and speakers directly).

For further information on the TAIEX instrument, please visit TAIEX webpage: http://taiex.ec.europa.eu
All TAIEX events as well as their agendas and presentations can be found on the webpage.

The general e-mail address of the TAIEX is elarg-taiex@ec.europa.eu

II. P2P Programme

In line with the Communication of the European Commission (EC) “Western Balkans: enhancing the European perspective” of 5 March 2008, the Directorate General for Enlargement of the EC launched a new strategy towards civil society – the “Civil Society Facility” (CSF). This initiative foresees support both at national and multi-beneficiary levels and consists of three strands, which together aim to strengthen civil society’s role in the democratic process:

  • Technical Assistance (TACSO) to civic and capacity-building initiatives  to enforce the role of civil society;
  • a People 2 People Programme (P2P) supporting visits to EU institutions and bodies to exchange experience, know-how and good practices between beneficiaries, EU and Member States civil society organisations (CSOs) and
  • Partnership Actions carried out between beneficiary and EU CSOs, leading to a transfer of know-how and the realisation of innovative trans-national projects.

The aims of the People 2 People Programme (P2P)

  • to help the beneficiary CSOs to familiarise themselves with the EU institutions and the decision-making process, as well as with key EU policies, legislation and programmes;
  • to offer the opportunity to CSOs to interact and network with their national, regional and European-level counterparts and to create new partnerships and
  • to stimulate civic participation in the beneficiary countries and in the region.

Target groups

The P2P Programme covers the following candidate countries and potential candidates to EU accession:
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo , the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey as well as Iceland.

It targets all layers of civil society of the beneficiaries mentioned above. These groups can be,  amongst others: employers associations; trade unions; NGOs dealing with acquis-related subjects, such as equal opportunities, non discrimination, employment, children rights, youth, etc.; organisations active in the cultural, artistic, educational and linguistic fields; human rights groups, including minorities defence groups, legal aid offices, etc; farmers associations; representatives of religion-based associations; consumer associations; health-related civil society organisations, etc.

Since the beginning of the P2P Programme more than 1000 representatives of CSOs have participated in more than 30 P2P Programme study tours, interacting on topics such as agriculture and rural development, the role of civil society in EU policy making, women in business, intercultural dialogue, social dialogue and employment policy, climate change and renewable energies, people with disabilities, youth, organised crime and corruption etc.

Types of activities of the P2P Programme (P2P)

The Programme mainly entails the organisation of:

  1. Multi-country study tours, where 3-5 representatives per beneficiary are invited to Brussels or other venues of EU institutions. In this case the participants have similar professional backgrounds but come from all over the region. The aim of these visits is to build up regional and European networking. The working language of these events is English.
  2. Single country events focusing on the same beneficiary with the objective of stimulating and strengthening dialogue and cooperation among interested parties. They are organised in the region. The working language of these events can be English and one or more local languages.

Selection procedure

  1. Selection of topics
    The topics under the P2P Programme are defined by the Directorate General for Enlargement, in accordance with the political, legislative or social priorities established in relation to the targeted region and beneficiaries, taking into account proposals from the European Union Delegations.
  2. Selection of participants
    The selection of participants for the study tours and single country events is conducted by the Directorate General for Enlargement with the assistance of the European Union Delegations.

Logistics

Once the topics, target group and the programme for a study tour have been established, the Directorate General for Enlargement deals with all the organisational, logistical and financial aspects of the study tour, such as transport and accommodation (if required).

Activities of the P2P Programme

For the year 2011 the P2P Programme foresees around 30 events. For further details, please consult the TAIEX web site: P2P 2011 planning http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/taiex/p2p/planning_en.htm.

Contacts:

For further questions relating to the P2P Programme, please contact us at: Elarg-CSF-P2P@ec.europa.eu
or consult our website:  http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/taiex/pdf/p2p/p2p-leaflet_en.pdf

III. Local Administration Facility (LAF)

What is LAF?

Local Administration Facility (LAF) is a programme under the TAIEX instrument managed by the Directorate-General Enlargement of the European Commission.

Objectives:

This programme aims at:
•    strengthening the institutional capacity of regional and local authorities with a view to further aligning it with EU requirements
•    awareness-raising and exchanging  experience and best practices amongst each other and with Member States’ municipalities
•    analysing the functioning of the EU institutions and the role of local and regional authorities in the implementation of the EU acquis.

Who are the beneficiaries of LAF assistance?

– candidate countries:  Turkey, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia
– potential candidates:  Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*

The programme targets representatives of the local and regional administration: elected heads or councilors of municipalities, governors of counties or provinces and senior permanent staff.

Seminars under the Local Administration Facility

LAF mainly entails the organisation of multi-country seminars, where 5-7 representatives per beneficiary are invited to Brussels. The aim of these events is to build up regional and European networks and to familiarise the participants with the EU legislation and programmes.

The working language is English.

Contact: If you have further questions about LAF contact us at Elarg-Taiex@ec.europa.eu

List of contacts for each Enlargement country is available here

More information: For more information on LAF, go to the page LAF in detail

IV. Instrument for Stability (IfS)

With the launch of the Instrument for Stability (IfS) in 2007 as a follow up to the Rapid Reaction Mechanism, the European Commission has considerably intensified its work in the area of conflict prevention, crisis management and peace building.

Crisis response projects under the Instrument for Stability focus on a wide range of issues, such as support to mediation, confidence building, interim administrations, strengthening Rule of Law, transitional Justice or the role of natural resources in conflict. Under the IfS, these activities can be supported in situations of crisis or emerging crisis, when timely financial help cannot be provided from other EU sources.
The IfS has been used to date to finance a large number of crisis response projects world wide. The largest share of funds was given to projects in Africa, Asia-Pacific, The Balkans, followed by the Middle East and Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Peace-building Partnership is an innovative part of the IfS and is established to strengthen civilian expertise for peace-building activities. It is created to deepen the dialogue between civil society and the EU institutions. It addresses, in particular, civil society organisations and think-tanks, but also international organisations and agencies in EU Member States.
The Instrument for Stability (IfS) also enables the EU to help build long-term international, regional and national capacity to address pervasive transregional and global threats.
If you have questions about the Instrument for Stability, please contact us at RELEX-IFS-INFO@ec.europa.eu.

The Interim Response Programme under the Instrument for Stability addresses the threats of Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) in Bosnia and Herzegovina through the Small Arms Programme.

People 2 People draft calendar 2013 — “Plan is draft document which is subject to changes. Potential participants will be entitled to apply only after a call for participants is launched for each event separately”.

The People to People Programme – Guidelines for the preparation and implementation of events — “Guidelines are intended to provide a support for those who are directly involved in the organization of P2P events (participants selection, agenda drafting, etc.). Annex to the guidelines is summarize of main activities, responsibilities and deadlines that are to be considered for the preparation/implementation of a P2P event”.



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