According to the Vice-Minister Andrius Krivas, Lithuania has been benefiting through TAIEX instrument during all twenty years of its existence. While in the first decade Lithuania as Beneficiary Country was getting advice and support for implementation of its pre-accession reforms, the second decade of TAIEX brought to the Lithuanian institutions and their experts self-confidence and understanding that accumulated knowledge and experience could be useful for other countries in transition and therefore the lessons learned should be shared with counterpart institutions.
Focussing on the thematic areas of Internet, Mobile and Postal Communications, the participants were advised of the road Lithuania took from a pre-accession country to a Member State. Also from being a beneficiary of TAIEX assistance to being a provider of TAIEX experts to assist today's beneficiaries and neighbours. The European Commission took the opportunity to emphasise that for twenty years it has made available institution building instruments such as TAIEX; to share best practice developed within the EU and knowledge of the Union's Acquis with beneficiary and partner public administrations.
„TAIEX projects undertaken in our organization influenced and provided guidance in identifying critical aspects of capacity building. Moreover, we have been able to identify the gaps between the status quo and our future vision, but what is most important, we have pushed ourselves to find inner ability to support the changes within the organization to move gradually towards our goals. It also, allowed us to re-evaluate networking environment and perform assigned functions based on cooperation and trust“ says Feliksas Dobrovolskis, Director of the Communications Regulatory Authority of Lithuania.
TAIEX is the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange instrument of the European Commission. Its aim is to provide beneficiaries’ public administrations with technical know-how and legislative expertise. Towards that end, TAIEX draws on experts from public administrations of EU Member States to provide tailor-made expertise in order to address short-term institutional or capacity building needs. Candidates and potential candidates for EU membership as well as European Neighbourhood Policy partners in the East and in the South are benefiting from its assistance.
