Capacity Building Specialist for Accession Negotiations Horizontal Issues Including Clusters 1 (Fundamentals) and 6 (External Relations) - retainer position

Under the direct supervision of the Project Manager, the Capacity Building Specialist for Accession Negotiations horizontal issues including clusters 1 (Fundamentals) and 6 (External Relations) will provide technical expertise to the Ministry for European Affairs (MEA) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the negotiation structure and will conduct capacity building workshops with the aim to strengthen the capacities of the personnel of these institutions.

 In particular, the Specialist will undertake following activities/responsibilities:

• Design, develop and deliver capacity building workshops on horizontal issues pertaining to preparing relevant negotiating documents (negotiation positions, benchmarks, addendums etc.)

• Provide expert advice to MEA in the process of drafting all relevant documents in the area of expertise of this ToR, by the request of the beneficiary, such as road maps, analyses, negotiating positions, talking points etc.

• Design, develop and deliver capacity building workshops within cluster 1 (Fundamentals) in particular rule of law, functioning of democratic institutions, public administration reform and cluster 6 (External Relations), with emphasis on but not limited to: scope, content, documents in these areas; main challenges in the course of accession negotiations; open issues and latest developments in the EU, different rules and responsibility of MEA and MFA organisational structures.

• Provide structured guidance on how to integrate horizontal issues (e.g., public administration reform, rule of law, anti-corruption, democratic institutions) across other negotiation clusters.

• Ensure that cross-cutting themes are consistently mainstreamed in negotiation positions and sector documents.

• Advanced University Degree preferably in Law, EU integration, International Relations, Public Administration, Management, Developments Studies, Sociology, Political Sciences, Human Rights, Social Sciences or other relevant discipline is required. 
• University Degree (Bachelor’s degree / first level) with two additional years of relevant professional experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

• Minimum five years of experience in working for/with an EU institution and/or working for/with the beneficiary countries on EU accession related elements is required. 
• Experience in capacity building activities in one or more areas covered by cluster 1 and 6 is required
• Experience in EU accession process in one or more Western Balkans countries will be considered an asset

• Fluency in English (speaking, reading and writing) is required