Technical support tool

0,86 billion

Supporting member states for reforms and institution building

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DG / Responsible Agencies:REFORM

Potential beneficiaries

Authorities and institutions (mainly governmental) of member states.

Description and objectives

The technical support tool addresses the essential need to strengthen the institutional and administrative capacity of member states to design and implement reforms. Successful implementation of good reforms in each member state is necessary to respond to the major challenges of our time (post-Covid recovery and resilience, sustainable and inclusive growth, green digital transition, international competitiveness, and quality of public services), but it is a very complex process, for which member states have different levels of expertise and capacity.

The Technical Support Facility is the main EU program that provides technical support to member states in the preparation and implementation of their reform programs useful for promoting economic and social recovery, resilience and economic and social convergence in European countries. Such reforms can be identified during the European Semester, in the process of economic policy coordination, or at the initiative of member states. They cover a wide range of areas: governance and public administration, taxation, public finance and asset management, institutional and administrative reforms, business environment, financial sector, goods and services markets, labor, education and training, sustainable development, public health, and social welfare. The program specifically promotes and actions that foster the green and digital transition and provides, among other things, technical support in the preparation and implementation of national recovery and resilience plans (NRPs), within the framework of the appropriate device .

Types of actions and projects

The program provides member state authorities active in different areas of public policy with tailored expertise to support their efforts to design and implement reforms. It therefore focuses on capacity building of public institutions in the various sectors targeted for potential reform and, in this programming period, on supporting the preparation, modification, revision and implementation of national recovery and resilience plans.

These specific objectives are pursued in close cooperation with the member states concerned and through the following types of actions:

• Provision of expertise in consulting on public policy and processes of change and reform, formulation of strategies and work plans for reforms (with focus on different levels of the reform process, legislative, institutional, structural and administrative);
• Provision of experts on a short-term or long-term basis to carry out tasks in specific areas or to carry out operational activities related to reform and institution-building processes;
• Capacity building and support actions at all levels of governance, including exchange of best practices, processes and methodologies, human resource management, and contribution to civil society empowerment.

Highlights

The technical support instrument is the successor to the structural reform support program. It has a larger budget and scope and extends its mandate to support the development and implementation of national recovery and resilience plans.