Twinning is an institutional building tool which provides direct exchange of specific national experience in a specific field in EU legislation implementation between a Public Administration in a Beneficiary country and the equivalent institution in an EU Member State.  

The Twinning programme was established in 1998 to assist candidate countries in their efforts to strengthen their administrative and institutional capacity in preparation for membership of the European Union. It was conceived as an instrument for targeted administrative cooperation assisting the candidate countries in strengthening their administrative and juridical capacity to implement Community legislation. The Twinning programme gained new impetus when it was extended to countries neighbouring with the EU. Twinning in the Newly Independent States (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine) is under centralized management which implies that the Contracting Authority is the EC Delegation.

The aim of Twinning is to upgrade /modernize the institutions of the Beneficiary country at central, regional and local level, through training, reorganization as well as drafting of laws and regulations modeled after the EU acquis. The fundamental principle of the Twinning project is that it must yield mandatory results.