European cooperation under debate at the Practitioners’ Network Annual Members General Assembly

Practitioners’ Network is a network comprising European cooperation agencies. It encourages the exchange of experiences and knowledge  and organises a joint response to common challenges as part of Team Europe. The General Assembly of Practitioners, held in Brussels, was an opportunity to take stock of the work carried out over the last year under the co-presidency of the Belgian organisation Enabel and the Luxenbourg agency LuxDev. The meeting also discussed European cooperation and the challenges facing the coming co-presidency by German agency GIZ and Lithuanian organisation CPMA. 

 FIIAPP will join SNV on the governing body of the Practitioners’ Network for the next three years. The joint candidacy for the co-presidency of the Practitioners’ Network 2022-2023 was supported by the members in the General Assembly. Both agencies hope to continue working from an inclusive perspective on the Networks’ strategic priorities regarding the challenge of incorporating the policy first principle.  

The General Assembly took stock of the Networks’ achievements over this last year. One major milestone was the joint declaration made at the Paris Finance in Common Summit in November 2020, where members of the Network pledged to work together with Public Development Banks to achieve a greater impact on development. As mentioned by several members and representatives of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), among the highlights were two studies carried out by this Commission DG and by Practitioners on the mobilisation of public sector knowledge , whose importance for European cooperation has been highlighted by the commissioner in charge of international partnerships at the European Commission, Jutta Urpilainen.  

INTPA Director General, Koen Doens, talked about the fundamental role of the Network in building Team Europe, and he was joined by INTPA’s Director of Sustainable Development Coordination and Policies , Felix Fernández-Shaw, who talked about the experience that its members can contribute on issues such as the Green Deal and digitalisation.  

Representatives from the agencies that make up the Network and Myriam Ferran, Director for Strategy and Turkey at DG NEAR underlined the importance of public technical cooperation as a differentiating feature of the European cooperation system. Along these lines, FIIAPP Director Anna Terrón highlighted the link between the policy first principle and public sector expertise. She stressed the need to keep working on public technical cooperation to share European values with partner countries.