The consultation is open to all interested parties which are involved in the preparation and implementation of pre-accession assistance, particularly those from EU member states, IPA beneficiary countries, partner financial institutions, other bilateral donors, and civil society organisations. The results will form part of an evaluation on the future of pre-accession assistance post-2013.

The questionnaire will be available online from Monday 28th February until April 4 at the following link: http://ghkint.com/enlargement

Background

The EU uses a specific financial instrument to help candidate countries and potential candidates in their efforts to meet accession criteria, to align with EU policies and standards and to foster socio-economic development: the Instrument of Pre-accession Assistance (IPA). This assistance is designed to be an investment in the future of the EU; by supporting its future members to prepare adequately for accession, the EU itself will be better placed to meet its strategic goals.

Altogether, €11.6 billion is available under IPA for 2007-2013 to help beneficiary countries prepare for accession. Since 2007, programming has been carried out on an annual or multi-annual basis under the IPA Implementing Regulation (Commission Regulation 718/2007 of 12 June 2007) which implements Council Regulation 1085/2006 of 17 July 2006 establishing an instrument for pre-accession assistance. The IPA instrument groups together several previous enlargement-related activities and includes five components:

·         Transition Assistance and Institution Building (Component I)

·         Cross-border cooperation (Component II)

·         Regional development  (Component III)

·         Human resources development (Component IV)

·         Rural development (Component V)

Components I and II apply to all beneficiaries of IPA assistance while components III to V apply only to candidate countries.

The stakeholders' consultation

The current Regulations expire at the end of 2013, coinciding with the end of the current Multi-annual Financial Framework. In the course of 2011, the European Commission will present its proposals for the post-2013 Multi-annual Financial Framework (on which annual EU budgets will then be based).

To support the preparation of the future pre-accession assistance instrument, the European Commission is conducting a stakeholder consultation. The purpose of the consultation is twofold:

·         To gather information to explain and better substantiate the added value and priorities of pre-accession assistance; and

·         To explore possibilities of how to improve specific aspects and the delivery of such assistance.

Stakeholders with an interest in EU pre-accession assistance are invited to take part in this consultation.

Your contributions will be one of the inputs to the Commission’s preparation of the legislative proposal for the post-2013 instrument for pre-accession assistance. It takes place in the context of, and additional to, the recently launched public consultation on all aspects of EU external funding.

How to contribute?

The consultation will run during March 2011 and is open to interested stakeholders involved in the preparation and implementation of pre-accession assistance, i.e. EU member states, national authorities in IPA beneficiary countries, partner financial institutions and bilateral donors as well as civil society organisations. The deadline for submission of replies is the April 4th 2011.

The European Commission has commissioned the European Policy Evaluation Consortium (EPEC), to support its work by producing a forward-looking ex-ante evaluation, which includes this stakeholders' consultation. The online questionnaire (available in English) is hosted on the website of one of the consortium members and can be accessed via the following link:

www.ghkint.com/enlargement/survey

Some respondents will not be best placed to answer all questions and they have the option of non response to sections of the questionnaire. Respondents will be encouraged in the open questions to provide argumentation and evidence to support their views. The questions are structured around: future needs; European added value; policy objectives; and implementation issues.

The main outcomes of the consultation will be presented in a follow up Stakeholders meeting that will be organised by the Commission in May 2011, and included in the ex-ante evaluation.

Source:

e-mail by Ms. Sanja FRKOVIC-GELEVSKA and http://ghkint.com/enlargement/