Eastern Partnership Facility

The Council of Europe is a permanent partner in the European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative, contributing to platforms on “Democracy, Good Governance and Stability” (Platform 1) and “Contacts between People” (Platform 4), as well as chairing two experts’ panels on corruption and the judiciary. The Council of Europe and the European Union have developed a programme – officially known as a “Facility” to carry out measures developed as part of the platform on Democracy, Good Governance and Stability. Costing €4 000 000, the Facility was signed by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, and the Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle, on 15 December 2010. Its implementation began on 1 March 2011 for a period of 30 months.

Its aim is to provide support to reform processes in the six partner countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) and bring them closer to Council of Europe and European Union standards in core areas such as public administration and electoral standards; judicial reform; fighting cybercrime and corruption, and promoting good governance.

It provides a framework for addressing issues raised by Council of Europe monitoring and advisory bodies, for mobilising expertise and peer advice, and for facilitating exchanges of best practice among participating countries. It will sustain momentum for the process of reform in each country and provide technical assistance and advice through regional co-operation and activities organised at a multilateral level. It will be divided into four projects, as follows:

Project 1: Supporting electoral standards especially in pre-electoral periods
Project 2: Enhancing judicial reform
Project 3: Support measures against serious forms of cybercrime
Project 4: Good governance and the fight against corruption

The Facility’s co-ordinating structure

A Facility Steering Committee will be set up and will enable all the main partners involved (i.e. the CoE, the EU and the national authorities) to be provided with updated information on progress in projects’ implementation and to assess the impact of the CoE Facility’s projects in the targeted areas.

The mission of the Facility Steering Committee is to assess and to guide the CoE Facility’s projects’ implementation: ensuring that the deliverables meet the requirements which were set for the Facility, advising on decisions on the requirements for the Facility’s projects, assessing the monitoring and audit results and supervising a communication campaign following the visibility guidelines concerning, notably, acknowledgement of EU financing.

The Facility Steering Committee will be composed of: European Union representatives, CoE Facility National Co-ordinators for each EaP country and the CoE MAE’s involved in the Facility’s projects.

Three Facility Steering Committee meetings will be organised during the implementation period, with the aim of evaluating the Facility’s projects’ implementation, assessing the results achieved, reviewing and adjusting (if necessary) the work logframe for the Facility’s projects’ implementation.

The First Facility Steering Committee (Kick-off) was organised in Brussels on 5 May 2011.
Agenda / List of participants

The second Facility Steering Committee Meeting was organised in Brussels on 6 June 2012.

Agenda / List of Participants / Summary / Presentations: Cybercrime , Fight Against Corruption , Judical Reform , Elections , Transversal Component

The final Facility SCM (wrap-up) will be held at the final stage of the Facility’s implementation period. The Facility SC meetings’ agendas and calendar will be synchronised to the extent possible with the calendar of the EaP Platform 1.

Project funded by the European Union