Bilateral projects

Twinning partnerships

In the past, the Bundesnetzagentur has worked on various twinning projects in the telecommunications and postal sectors. These projects are financed by the EU as part of its PHARE programme and are an instrument for promoting partnerships between authorities in EU Member States and public administrations in potential candidate countries. The aim is to establish administrative structures that are able to put European legislation into practice in readiness for accession to the Union. Such projects are also carried out in countries bordering Europe, with the aim of passing on European administrative standards.

In 2008, the Bundesnetzagentur won a call to tender for a two-year twinning project in Egypt, together with the Italian regulator AGCOM. Since the beginning of 2009, workshops have been taking place on a regular basis in Cairo with experts from the Bundesnetzagentur. They support their Egyptian colleagues with the establishment and development of sector-specific regulation for the telecommunications market and with the adjustment of the legal basis.

In 2010, the Bundesnetzagentur gained another twinning project. Building on the successful work in Egypt, it has been overseeing a project in Israel since 2011 in cooperation with the Italian authority AGCOM and Spain's CMT. The focus here is on areas in which the Bundesnetzagentur has already played a key role on a European level, such as Next Generation Access (NGA), dispute resolution and conciliation, and consumer protection.

Technical Assistance Information Exchange

TAIEX stands for the "Technical Assistance and Information Exchange Instrument" managed by the Directorate-General Enlargement of the European Commission. TAIEX supports countries in aligning, implementing and enforcing EU legislation. TAIEX responds primarily to demand, bundling requests for support in order to contribute rapidly to problem solving with the provision of tailored expertise.

As part of the EU's TAIEX programme, for example, the Bundesnetzagentur organised a study visit by the Turkish Electricity Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA). The experts from EMRA learnt about "provision and pricing of system services in the electricity market". In addition to specialist presentations on the Bundesnetzagentur duties, participants also observed system management at a German network operator.