The accession negotiations between Turkey and the EU opened in 2005. At the central level, numerous legal reforms were achieved to meet the EU standards, but these efforts could not lead to sufficient effects at the local level. According to the Council of European Municipalities and Regions, ‘over 60% of decisions taken at the European level have a direct impact on municipalities, provinces and regions’. Therefore, local administrations also have important roles with respect to the implementation of the EU acquis at local level.
The main objective of the project ‘Town twinning between Turkey and the European Union’ (TT-I) was to increase the Turkish local governments’ administrative and institutional capacity in the context of Turkey’s accession process to the EU. This was done by promoting innovative twinning partnerships between local authorities in Turkey and the EU local authorities, to establish long-term relations.
The TT-I is the first EU-funded project in Turkey in terms of providing grants to local authorities in the field of town twinning. It was also meant to maintain an explicit focus on promoting the role of local authorities in Turkey’s accession to the EU and ensure the proper implementation of the EU acquis at the local level. In this context, co-beneficiary institutions had their first experience in EU-funded grant implementation, and their staff were trained for effective grant implementation and monitoring in line with EU rules. The TT-I paved the way for establishment of the project implementation unit in the Union of Municipalities of Turkey (UMT), which did not exist prior to the project.
Within the scope of the TT-I, several capacity-building events were organised: eight training courses on EU acquis chapters and town twinning, two thematic workshops for Turkish local authorities in different cities, and four study visits were organised to enable the representatives of Turkish local authorities to observe best practices in Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Croatia and Czechia. Participants were encouraged to establish long-term partnerships with the institutions visited. Two municipalities, which attended the Belgium study visit, later participated in the Covenants of Mayors network.
The two-week, tailor-made internship programme in EIPA Barcelona was also successfully implemented with fruitful outcomes. The programme allowed the participants to acquire a combination of both practical and theoretical knowledge on city-to-city cooperation schemes, and familiarisation with relevant EU institutions and networks. The internship programme included a balanced combination of lectures, workshops, discussions and visits to organisations such as United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). It expanded the participants’ knowledge on best practices concerning town twinning and other forms of exchange between local authorities.