Twinning projects aim to institutionally support and develop EU candidate and neighbourhood countries, as well as some countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Twinning takes place between public institutions from the EU Member States and recipient countries and is financed from EU funds. It involves the exchange of experience in the implementation of EU law and allows for long-term cooperation between partners. The implementation of Twinning projects is based primarily on the organisation of specialised training courses in the beneficiary country and conducting study visits to institutions in the EU Member States country.

This cooperation contributes to the strengthening of Poland's international position by building a positive image on the international arena, developing political and economic contacts in beneficiary countries, promoting the Polish know-how, and supporting institutional transformation of aid recipients.

Twinning project for Georgia - UOKiK as a partner in the project “Advancing the Capacities of the Market Surveillance Agency of Georgia" (2023)

In June 2023, UOKiK won the competition for the twinning project “Advancing the Capacities of the Market Surveillance Agency of Georgia”. UOKiK, as a Junior Partner, will implement it in a consortium with Lithuania (State Consumer Rights Protection Authority (SCRPA), Lead Partner) and Germany (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), Junior Partner). UOKiK will play a leading role in the “Reinforced Market Surveillance Framework” component. The project will start on October 1, 2023, and will last 24 months, with a budget of €1.2 million.

UOKiK as a partner in the project "Strengthening institutional capacity of the Competition Council" (2021)

In November 2021, UOKiK as a Junior Partner won the Twinning project in Morocco, in consortium with Greece (Hellenic Competition Commission - HCC, Lead Partner) and Italy (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato - AGCM, Junior Partner). The project entitled "Strengthening institutional capacity of the Competition Council" will run for 24 months with a budget of €0,9 million. The project began on 22 December 2021.

Polish Aid is Polish development cooperation implemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the basis of the Development Cooperation Act of September 16, 2011. The MFA implements activities in cooperation with governmental bodies, social organizations and local entities in partner countries as well as within the framework of international organizations. They are planned in a multi-annual perspective - the current strategic document is “Multi-Annual Development Cooperation Program for 2021-2030. Solidarity for Development”. The operational documents are annual Development Cooperation Plans which define, among other things, the specific forms of cooperation as well as the amount of funds allocated to each priority country or to a given development cooperation task.

UOKiK in Polish Aid project for Moldova and Ukraine (2023)

From April to December 2023, UOKiK has been implementing the project “Institutional assistance to antimonopoly offices in Ukraine and Moldova”, co-financed by the Polish Aid program of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The beneficiary of the cooperation is the Moldovan Competition Council (CC) and the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU).

Within the framework of the project, the following activities have been planned for Moldovan and Ukrainian experts:

• May 2023 - workshop in Chisinau on state aid, competition law and communications;
• June 2023 - workshop in Chisinau on planning and conducting antitrust investigations, detection of cartels and bid-rigging, and contractual advantage;
• September 2023 - expert internships in UOKiK’s branch offices in Bydgoszcz and Poznań in the formula of job shadowing; 
• November 2023 - study visit to UOKiK’s branch office in Łódź and workshop in Warsaw on market research, monitoring and digital markets.

These initiatives are intended to institutionally support the CC and AMCU in competition law and state aid enforcement. Their announcement came as part of the regional cooperation agreement signed at the Office's headquarters on April 18, 2023 by the heads of 10 antitrust offices from Central and Eastern Europe.

The heads of 10 antitrust offices from Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and two EU candidate countries - Moldova and Ukraine - signed an memorandum on regional cooperation for competition protection at UOKiK’s headquarters.

The event was also attended by the European Commission's Director General for Competition Olivier Guersent, the head of the Competition Division of the OECD's Directorate of Finance and Enterprise Ori Schwartz, the head of UNCTAD's Competition and Consumer Policy Division Teresa Moreira, and ambassadors of signatory countries. The ceremony was accompanied by a roundtable of heads of authorities on such issues as setting priorities in competition law enforcement, effective institutional management and human resource development.

The memorandum creates a platform for the exchange of experiences in the region, contributes to multilateral capacity building, is only voluntary and, almost importantly, complementary, as it does not interfere with the European Competition Network.

The main objective of this initiative is to strengthen cooperation, to undertake joint activities which will take the form of:

• working groups
• study visits
• workshops
• informal exchange of information regarding, among other things, ongoing investigations and market research

The aforementioned initiatives are organized by the UOKiK on an ongoing basis with the support of funds from Polish Aid.