2. Background
Tracking financial contributions to Team Europe Initiatives (TEIs) showcases their impact in development cooperation, contributing to transparency and accountability and providing visibility to the work of the European Union and its Member States. TEIs are the sum of several coordinated, but mostly independent interventions implemented by individual actors following a TE approach under an agreed Joint Intervention Logic147. The joint tracking of, and reporting on, these financial contributions is one of the requirements of the Council Conclusions on Team Europe of 23 April 2021, which called upon ‘Team Europe members to closely coordinate and jointly design, implement and monitor Team Europe Initiatives in an inclusive manner’. Global Gateway is developed and delivered mainly through Team Europe Initiatives, which makes the reporting on financial contributions to TEIs all the more relevant. The workstream on financial tracking of TEIs is closely linked to the workstream on results monitoring (TEIs – Monitoring, Reporting and Evaluation (MORE) Framework).
TE approach actors have been asked through the EUDGx meetings to set out indicative financial commitments to the TEIs in which they wish to participate, which have been collected manually. In order to track the disbursement of such financial contributions, a joint mechanism for monitoring and reporting has been established for all TE approach actors through an inclusive process. This relies on existing reporting mechanisms for development assistance with automatic features as much as possible, complemented exceptionally by manual processes only where possible and necessary. The ambition is a mechanism that is inclusive of all actors following a TE approach, ensures a high degree of standardisation in reporting, robustness of data and comprehensiveness of the type of available information per contribution as well as consistency with existing reporting on development assistance in general, all while keeping the additional reporting burden for TE actors to a minimum.
Following an extensive bilateral outreach by the Commission to other TE approach actors, resulting in individual exchanges with 23 Member States which were available as well as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in November/December 2021, the Commission drafted a concept paper outlining the technical options and proposals for a joint financial tracking system. This was discussed during a dedicated virtual workshop on 24 January 2022, which was attended by more than 70 participants from EU Member States, EIB, EBRD, IATI as well as the Commission (INTPA D1, D4, R2) and EEAS. Based on the concept paper, the discussion at the workshop as well as written feedback submitted by TE approach actors afterwards, the Commission has prepared this guidance note, which is to assist actors following a TE approach with the technical aspects of financial TEI tracking and ensure coherence. It is a living document which will evolve based on the needs actors following TE approach. The Commission can furthermore offer training on financial TEI reporting for all actors following a TE approach as well as technical assistance and coaching on a demand basis.
147 This means that if a Member State is implementing a TEI-related project fully through delegated cooperation, this Member State’s financial contribution to the TEI amounts to 0. If, for instance, EUR 10 million are provided by the MS and EUR 90 million come from the EU as delegated cooperation, this Member State’s financial contribution to the TEI accounts for EUR 10 million. If it is the other way round, the Member State’s contribution amounts to EUR 90 million.