To upgrade the administrative level of the governmental authorities, a new "institutional twinning mechanism" with the EU was launched this week. Mona El-Fiqi reports Egyptian governmental authorities may soon be following the EU's best practices. This may come about with the implementation of the recently launched "institutional twinning mechanism" which allows for direct cooperation between Egyptian governmental authorities and any of their counterparts in the 25 EU member states. To introduce the programme, which falls within the framework of the EU's support for the Egypt-EU Association Agreement, a workshop was organised this week in Cairo by the Delegation of the European Commission in Egypt and the Ministry of International Cooperation. Speaking at the workshop, Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Fayza Abul-Naga said the institutional twinning fund will receive an estimated 25 million euros. She explained that the twinning mechanism is a technique to improve the administrative level of governmental authorities to be on equal footing with their European counterparts. The twinning mechanism agreement is expected to be signed by the EU and the Egyptian government before the end of 2005. According to Abul-Naga, the preparatory work for the future twinning is currently underway, starting with the ministries of investment, tourism, transportation and telecommunication and information technology. Moreover, Abul-Naga added, the Egyptian government has a list of 12 projects in other ministries to participate in the twinning mechanism. The agricultural sector, for example, is expected to benefit from the twinning mechanism since it will help the agricultural authorities to obtain the mechanism needed to meet the EU's high technical requirements and be able to raise the volume of Egyptian agricultural exports to the EU. The twinning projects do not aim at transplanting a particular EU member state administrative system in Egypt but rather strive to help introduce best practices across the EU at large in Egypt. "Through the twinning mechanism, the Egyptian authorities will get the chance to gain the experience of their European counterparts." Klaus Ebermann, ambassador of the European Commission delegation in Cairo told Al-Ahram Weekly. The twinning mechanism has proved successful in introducing EU public administration best practices to EU partner countries as well as enhancing cooperation among the public administrations of both EU member states and partner countries. Moreover, Ebermann explained that the extension of the twinning instrument to the partner countries involved in the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Egypt, shows the importance of steadily increasing integration between the EU and the ring of friends around its borders. "We have many fields of cooperation with Egypt and the total value of European projects which are currently underway within the framework of the EU-Egypt Association Agreement is estimated at 1.1 billion euros," added Ebermann. If the twinning mechanism is extended to the tax and customs authorities, it will help to improve the trade balance between Egypt and the EU countries, according to Ebermann.
