France, Romania and Turkey have been working together since April 2014 to promote European Union standards in the field of air transport in Turkey.

France-Romania consortium has been selected at the end of 2013 by Turkey after a European selection call for proposals' procedure.

The goal and name of the twinning project is “Strengthening institutional and administrative capacity of the Turkish directorate general of civil aviation”. Project’s overall budget is €2,500,000 with 2,137,500 EU contribution and reference number of the Project is TR 11 IB TR 01.

Following an active first phase in 2014 – 2015, the second phase of the project has started at the end of February 2016, with a new work plan which takes into account the work already performed during the period 2014-2015 of the twinning project.

During the above mentioned period, legal issues, as well as air navigation and operations topics have been addressed. Related expertise has been used to prepare the work plan currently under implementation.

Using the stocktaking which took place in 2014-2015, both EU member states and Turkey have agreed in July 2015, to refine the work plan for 2016-2017, keeping the original components and the objectives defined in the first phase of the twinning project.

The components from the original work remain unchanged, except the component 5 which has been redefined, following the work done in 2015-2016, from “Training Assessments Needs and Training Plan”, to “Training by National Academy of Civil Aviation (ENAC - France)”.

Note: the components of the twinning project are:
- Component 1: Strengthening the Legal Capacity of TDGCA,
- Component 2: Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of TDGCA,
- Component 3: Strengthening the Oversight Capacity of TDGCA,
- Component 4: ETS and Environmental issues,
- Component 5: Training by National Academy of Civil Aviation (ENAC - France).

Project activities are now taking place in Ankara, İstanbul, Antalya, Eskişehir, Paris, Toulouse, Lyon, Marseille and Bucharest.

About Twinning

Twinning
Twinning is a European Union instrument for institutional cooperation between Public Administrations of EU Member States and of beneficiary or partner countries.

Twinning projects bring together public sector expertise from EU Member States and beneficiary countries with the aim of achieving concrete mandatory operational results through peer to peer activities.

Beneficiaries
- Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA):
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia [1], the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo*[2], Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.
- European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP):
• ENI South: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia.
• ENI East: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Objectives
In the IPA region, Twinning aims to provide support for the transposition, implementation and enforcement of the EU legislation (the Union acquis). It builds up capacities of beneficiary countries' public administrations throughout the accession process, resulting in progressive, positive developments in the region. Twinning strives to share good practices developed within the EU with beneficiary public administrations and to foster long-term relationships between administrations of existing and future EU countries.

Since 2004 the Twinning instrument is also available to some of the EU Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood partner countries. In this framework it aims at upgrading the administrative capacities of the public administration of a partner country through the training of its staff and the support to the reorganisation of its structure. It also supports the approximation of national laws, regulations and quality standards to those of EU Member States in the framework of Cooperation or Association agreements signed with the EU.

Twinning principles
The beneficiary / partner administration in a Twinning project is a public administration with sufficient staff and absorption capacity to work with a Member State institution having a similar structure and mandate. The beneficiary / partner country must mobilise its staff, demonstrate enduring commitment and ownership and take on board changes and best practices in a sustainable way. Twinning is not a one-way technical assistance instrument but a shared commitment.

Twinning projects are implemented with a view to the mandatory results to be achieved. They are usually articulated in components corresponding to the expected results and foresee a number of activities including workshops, training sessions, expert missions, study visits, internships and counselling. Twinning lies on learning by doing principle and sharing of best practices.

Transferring expertise
To set up Twinning projects, the European Union relies on the co-operation and administrative experience of EU Member States (MS) which mobilise public expertise both from public administrations and semi-public bodies.

Two Project Leaders (one on behalf of the EU Member State leading the project, the other of the beneficiary administration) and a Resident Twinning Adviser (RTA) are the backbone of Twinning projects. The RTA is seconded to the beneficiary administration for a minimum of 12 months up to 36 months throughout the entire duration of the implementation period of the Action and coordinates the project's activities.