Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II)

Prepared in partnership with the beneficiaries, IPA II sets a new framework for providing pre-accession assistance for the period 2014-2020.

The most important novelty of IPA II is its strategic focus. Country Strategy Papers are the specific strategic planning documents made for each beneficiary for the 7-year period. These will provide for a stronger ownership by the beneficiaries through integrating their own reform and development agendas. A Multi-Country Strategy Paper will address priorities for regional cooperation or territorial cooperation.

IPA II targets reforms within the framework of pre-defined sectors. These sectors cover areas closely linked to the enlargement strategy, such as democracy and governance, rule of law or growth and competitiveness. This sector approach promotes structural reform that will help transform a given sector and bring it up to EU standards. It allows a move towards a more targeted assistance, ensuring efficiency, sustainability and focus on results.

IPA II also allows for a more systematic use of sector budget support. Finally, it gives more weight to performance measurement: indicators agreed with the beneficiaries will help assess to what extent the expected results have been achieved.

Status
running
Target Group
Organizations
Activities
Demonstration and investment activities
Subjects
Business and economics, Development, Not specified
Source Regions
European Union
Source Countries
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Eligible Regions
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Eligible Countries
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey
Grant Types
Cooperation, collaboration
Funding Bodies
-
Languages
Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish Gaelic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish
Support Types
-
Deadline Date
-
Programme
-
Programme Owner
Managing Authority
About
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Services
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Legal Source
Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II)
Supporting Programme
-
Resources
http://
Refering Grants
-
Annual
yes

Focus
 
  • Strengthening democratic institutions
  • Promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and enhanced respect for minority rights
  • Development of civil society
  • Regional and cross-border cooperation

Duration

2014-2020


Proposal Submission

Supported activities
 

Assistance will address the following policy areas:
(a) the transition process towards Union membership and capacity building;
(b) regional development;
(c) employment, social policies and human resources development;
(d) agriculture and rural development;
(e) regional and territorial cooperation.


Implementation
 The financial envelope for the implementation of this Regulation for the period from 2014 to 2020 is set at EUR 11 698 668 000 (current prices) . Up to 4 % of the financial envelope shall be allocated to cross-border cooperation programmes between the beneficiaries listed in Annex I and EU Member States, in line with their needs and priorities (Parliament voting).

An indicative amount of EUR 1 680 000 000 from the different external instruments (Development Cooperation Instrument, European Neighbourhood Instrument, Instrument for Preaccession Assistance, Partnership Instrument and the European Development Fund), will be allocated to actions of learning mobility to or from non EU countries and to cooperation and policy dialogue with authorities/institutions/organisations from these countries. The provisions of the "Erasmus for All" Regulation will apply to the use of those funds.

A priority for the Commission in this new Regulation is to simplify the regulatory environment and facilitate Union assistance to beneficiary countries and regions, civil society organisations, SMEs, etc.

The objectives of the assistance should be defined in indicative country and multi–country strategy papers established by the Commission for the duration of the Union’s Multi-annual Financial Framework in partnership with the beneficiary countries, based on their specific needs and enlargement agenda. The strategy papers should identify the policy areas for assistance and, without prejudice to the prerogatives of the budgetary authority, lay down the indicative allocations of funds per policy area, broken down per year, including an estimate of climate related expenditure. Sufficient flexibility should be built in to cater for emerging needs and to give incentives to improve performance.

Linked to the streamlining of the components structure, undifferentiated access to assistance under each policy area means that beneficiary countries will no longer need to be identified separately in the legal basis of the instrument. As a result, it will no longer be necessary to go through a cumbersome procedure to reflect a beneficiary’s change of status, thus reducing the gap between the political decisions on financial assistance and implementation on the ground.

Different Commission services will remain responsible for managing and implementing the assistance in the different policy areas. However, coordination, communication and implementation on the ground will be further improved through simplification of a number of aspects, including closer joint monitoring of the progress of implementation in the beneficiary countries and fewer processes for accreditation and conferral of management powers. Increasing the coherence of action by the Commission should also substantially reduce the cost and burden of coordination incurred by beneficiary countries, on account of the different communication channels and procedures used by the Commission.

Overall, the current proposal for IPA II and future implementing rules envisage the following revisions to the design of the instrument and its implementation modalities:
 

  • The delivery of assistance will be made more coherent, strategic and result-oriented
  • The delivery of assistance will be made more flexible and tailored to address needs
  • The deployment of assistance will be made more efficient and effective

Terms And Conditions

Legal basis: REGULATION (EU) No 231/2014 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 11 March 2014 establishing an Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II)


Budget

EUR 14 110 million  in current prices


Available Calls

There is no particular deadine for this call.


Total Funding Amount

€ 11.7 billion


Selection Criteria

Candidate countries

  • the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
  • Iceland
  • Montenegro
  • Turkey

Potential candidate countries

  • Albania
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Serbia
  • Kosovo (Under UNSCR 1244/1999)

Open To

Pre-accessing countries.


Notes
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