European Union

Jerusalem, 21 June, 2012,

Today the Israeli Ministry of Communications (MOC) and the consortium created by the telecommunications regulators from Germany (BNetzA), Spain (CMT) and Italy (AGCOM) have celebrated with an international conference the closure of their Twinning Project. Among the participants to the conference were the Head of the EU Delegation to the State of Israel, the Director General of the MOC and representatives from the European partners as well as the operators and associations of the telecommunications market in Israel. 

The Twinning Project, funded and supported by the European Union, assisted the MOC in establishing greater approximation to the European Union. The ultimate goal of the Project was to foster competition in the Israeli telecommunications markets and increase the protection of the Israeli consumers.

The Head of the EU Delegation to Israel, H.E. Ambassador Standley, underlined the symbolic dimension of the project, which emphasizes the need to pool forces and uphold competitiveness in the current economic crisis. Ambassador Standley underlined “the many tangible contributions and results of the twinning project, which contribute to the reinforcement of the regulator’s role in ensuring a smooth functioning of the communications market that achieves a high level of consumer protection”. He expressed his confidence that a national and independent regulator be established soon by the Israeli Government in line with the most advanced EU framework.

 The project lasted 16 months starting from February 2011. Over this time, the EU covered the 600 000€ cost of the project and EU partners sent around 50 experts to Israel.

The MOC and EU experts were working on the following topics:

1. Pricing methodologies for technologically neutral wholesale market regulation
2. Differences between Regulatory Frameworks and roadmap for desired approximation
3. Data collection
4. Enforcement Methods and Objectives
5. Dispute Resolution
6. Consumer Protection
7. Technical aspects of the Israeli wholesale market

What is Twinning?

Twinning is a European Commission initiative that was originally designed to help EU candidate countries acquire the necessary skills and experience to adopt, implement and enforce EU legislation. Since 2003, twinning has been available to some of the Newly Independent States of Eastern Europe and to countries of the Mediterranean region.

Twinning projects bring together public sector expertise from EU Member States and beneficiary countries with the aim of enhancing co-operative activities. They must yield concrete operational results for the beneficiary country under the terms of the Association Agreement between that country and the EU.

Twinning projects such as this one create long-lasting relations between the Israeli and European administrations. They also prepare the ground for many future accomplishments and reinforce the solid ties between the European Union, its Member States and Israel. Drawing on the success of this project and on the recent twinning projects on veterinary services, equal employment opportunities, transportation and data protection, the State of Israel and the Delegation of the EU to Israel are preparing new projects in various fields (rural development, statistics, energy and environment).