The Commission is reorganising its economic system for external assistance. Currently, the experts in Brussels say, “the Union acts through regionally-based programmes such as TACIS, CARDS and MEDA, and through a large number of theme-based instruments aimed, for example, at supporting democracy or human rights. In the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern area alone, the Union carries out its operations through no fewer than 13 different programmes. The effective administration of such a vast organisation has become, over the course of the years, ever more difficult”. From now on, the “instrument for pre-adhesion” will be directed to candidate countries (at present Turkey and Croatia) and to potential candidates (among them the western Balkan States). The “instrument for neighbours and partnerships” will involve States that participate in the Union’s neighbour-State policy, such as Ukraine and Belarus. The “instrument of co-operation for development” will be aimed at all those countries not covered by the first two instruments, while the instrument for “stability” will be directed to “the fight against arms trafficking, organised crime and terrorism”. Finally, the “instrument for humanitarian aid” and the instrument for “macro-economic assistance” will be the only elements of the old system to be kept functioning.
