This means measuring how well one country, business, industry, etc. is performing compared to other countries, businesses, industries, and so on. The 'benchmark' is the standard by which performance will be judged. Benchmarking is one of the techniques used in the 'Lisbon process'.
These are the people or institutions, which benefit in one way or another from the results of the project. They can be classified as: Project partners/direct beneficiaries: Institutions and establishments, which plan and implement projects funded by the European Commission; for example, ministries and governmental organs. Inter-beneficiaries Groups supported within the framework of the project in order to provide better service to the target groups; for example, the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture who are trained to provide better consultation to farmers. Final beneficiariesSocial segments or large sectors that will benefit from the project over the long term. Examples: children who will benefit from the allocation of greater budgets for health and education expenditures; consumers who will benefit from the development of agricultural production and marketing; the state that will benefit from increased export revenues as a result of greater agricultural production and marketing.
The country or state outside the European Union with which the European Communities have an agreed programme of cooperation.
One way of improving policies in the EU is for governments to look at what is going on in other EU countries and to see what works best. They can then adopt this 'best practice', adapting it to their own national and local circumstances.
A technical term meaning the gap between a government's revenue and its expenditure.
