Helping countries prepare for accession

Accession Partnerships/European Partnerships

These partnerships identify the priorities (targets) the EU expects candidate countries to address as well as the financial resources to be made available – under specific conditions – for this purpose and are concluded separately with each individual candidate country. Progress in meeting these targets determines how much assistance is made available as well as how fast accession negotiations proceed or, in other cases, whether the point for opening accession negotiations has yet been reached.

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Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA)

Since 1 January 2007 the IPA has replaced the previous pre-accession instruments PHARE (Poland and Hungary Action for the Reconstruction of the Economy), ISPA (Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-accession), SAPARD (Special Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development) and the financial instrument CARDS (Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilization). This means the EU's assistance in the area of enlargement is now delivered through one single instrument. The assistance provided through IPA goes both to candidate countries (currently Croatia, Turkey and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) and potential candidate countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro).

IPA is flexible enough to adapt rapidly to any new priorities arising during the pre-accession process that may be identified in the relevant Accession Partnership. Assistance will be provided in the areas of institution-building, regional and cross-border cooperation, regional development, rural development and human resources development. Only recognized candidate countries are eligible for IPA assistance in the three last-mentioned areas, for the intention is to help prepare them to manage assistance from the Structural Funds, the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. For potential candidate countries this is incidentally an additional incentive to pursue reforms and thereby acquire the candidate country status that will make them eligible for assistance also in these areas.

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