TAIEX or the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange is an instrument of the Institution Building unit of Directorate-General Enlargement of the European Commission.

TAIEX was set up in 1996 to support the faster implementation of the EU acquis in the Candidate Countries by compulsory transposition. In 2006, there was a gradual extension in the use of the instrument to the Neighboring countries and Russia to promote the voluntary approximation of the EU acquis on the basis of commonly shared norms.

TAIEX helps countries with regard to the approximation, application and enforcement of EU legislation. It is mainly demand-driven and channels requests for assistance and contributes to the delivery of appropriate tailor-made expertise to address problems at short notice.

The main tasks of TAIEX are:

• To provide short term technical assistance and advice on the transposition of EU legislation into the national legislation of beneficiary countries and on the subsequent administration, implementation and enforcement of such legislation.
• To provide technical training and peer assistance to partners and stakeholders of the beneficiary countries.
• To be an information broker by gathering and making available information.
• To provide database tools for facilitating and monitoring the approximation progress as well as to identify further technical assistance needs.

 Types of TAIEX assistance

TAIEX assistance  may be delivered to single, multiple or all Beneficiary Countries, depending on the identified needs. These services can be single, stand alone actions responding to the identified needs, as well as the assistance activities may be consecutive, where the assistance is required over a long time period and is not available through other Technical Assistance instruments.

The main types of TAIEX assistance tools are: 

Seminar-Workshops

Expert Mission

Assessment Mission (Peer assessment)

Study visit to EU Member States.

TAIEX Beneficiaries

The beneficiaries of TAIEX assistance includes those sectors, both public and private, who have a role to play in the beneficiary countries in the transposition, implementation and enforcement of EU legislation. The main target groups are:

• Civil servants working in public administrations at national and sub-national level and in associations of local authorities;
• The Judiciary and Law Enforcement authorities;
• Members of Parliaments and civil servants working in Parliaments and Legislative Councils;
• Professional and commercial associations representing social partners, as well as representatives of trade unions and employers' associations;
• Interpreters, revisers and translators of legislative texts.

TAIEX does not provide direct support to private citizens, or to individual companies.