The European Institute of Public Administration is an organization with a European vocation, playing a prominent role in providing information, training, research and consultancy within the field of European affairs. In addition, the Institute is a living entity which contributes to the cultural updating of the European environment by constantly adapting itself and evolving in line with European developments, and communicating these developments to its interlocutors, which are essentially public officials from the EU Member States and the applicant countries to the EU.
EIPA is also the result of a unique evolutionary process, during which it has successfully managed the growing and ever-changing demands placed upon its resources by the Member States of the European Union.
EIPA was founded in 1981, before the wave of accession of Greece, Spain and Portugal and the more recent accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden to the Union. In the first years of its existence, EIPA’s contacts and client base remained limited. Nowadays, however, the Institute provides up-to-date information to an audience which includes not only public officials from the 15 Member States and applicant countries, but also interested parties in other countries; in short, wherever there is a demand for knowledge about Europe and the many aspects of the EU.