EU official pins hope on Jordan to lead the way for institutional twinning  

AMMAN — The European Union (EU) is bracing itself for a facelift next year as ten new countries join its membership and several more share its borders, many of which are Mediterranean countries.
European Commission (EC) officials have long started an adjustment strategy to cope with their new neighbours, extending from Russia to Morocco, in a concerted effort labelled the 'Wider Europe Initiative'— its ripple effects reaching Jordan last week — that suggests the EU works in partnership with its neighbours to develop a zone of prosperity or a ring of friends, around the Union.

"Europe will be at your feet," EC representative, Marco Mazzocchi Alemanni, told participants at a two-day workshop to launch the 20 million euros. Support to the EU-Jordan Association Agreement Programme (SAAP), a programme launched to resuscitate the EU-Jordan Association Agreement inked last year but did not take off as predicted.

"For the first time, we are developing the same policy for our neighbours, be they on the European continent or elsewhere," he reiterated in an interview with The Jordan Times.

The policy Alemanni was reverting to presents a readiness on the part of the EU to share all but institutions with partner countries, including a complete sharing of policies; agricultural, transport, energy, asylum, anti-fraud, etc.

In return for concrete reforms, Wider Europe Initiative, would also offer all neighbouring countries the prospect of a stake in the EU market.

Thus comes the major difference between the Wider Europe action plans, from which SAAP is derived, and the generic EU association agreements struck with various partner countries including, Morocco, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan.

According to Alemanni, action plans are tailor-made to fit each EU partner's ambitions vis-ý-vis Europe instead of a one-size-fits-all association agreement which in many cases did not live up to its potential.

Exports to the EU under the association agreement stood at JD43.8 million last year while exports to the US from Qualifying Industrial Zones was JD270.7 million.

However, in their own right, association agreements do carry a comprehensive partnership plan covering a wide array of issues including dismantling trade barriers, economic upgrading of partner economies as well as a culture, environment, agriculture, customs control and combating drugs.

"Unfortunately most of our neighbours in the region read only into the economic upgrading part of the agreement," disregarding all its other aspects, the head of Southern Mediterranean, Middle and Near East Economic Cooperation Unit at the EC added.

Alemanni did concede to the fact that time has passed on association agreements and the EU needs to change many clauses to adapt to new realities, namely terrorism.

The SAAP will do just that through a number of tools; traditional short- and long-term assistance and institutional "twinnings"— a tool previously applied to EU pre-accession countries to bring their institutions up to par with EU standards.

Now to be applied to Europe's neighbours, twinning aims to pair bureaucrats and technical experts from EU member states with counterpart officials in partner countries whereby experts will describe how to apply EU legislation to various fields in the governmental activity sphere.

"Launching twinning in a new environment, which at the end of the tunnel does not encompass membership in EU, is a huge challenge," Alemanni stressed, "but one that can be conquered."

As the first non-EU-accession country to experiment with institutional twinning, Jordan is faced with a huge challenge: To lead the way for other countries to follow suit.

With 850 twinnings under his sleeve, Alemanni has reason for optimism as he creates a network of public sector professionals between the EU and Jordan.

The official expects the first EU-Jordanian twinning to see the light next April.

"We are betting on you [Jordan] to be an inspiration to others in the region," he concluded.