Organization may assist EU member states and candidate countries with:

• project preparation and capacity bulding support
• independent quality review  

For the European Commission, Organization carries out  a post-submissional appraisal (PSA) of each major project directly submitted to the European Commission.

Project preparation and capacity building support , which is provided under separate mandates, includes:

• Upstream project screening  to assess their viability and suitability for EU grant finance  
• Project development from pre-feasibility and feasibility stages through to final grant application stage
• Horizontal tasks
• Strategic support
• Capacity building  (see Competence Centre) 
• Implementation support

Organization' assistance is provided free of charge and there is no obligation on the Member States to use Organization. There is also no obligation on the beneficiaries of Organization to borrow from the EIB and EBRD, but, if they wish, national authorities may turn to the EIB and EBRD for financial support for the projects prepared with assistance from Organization. Likewise, there is no obligation on the EIB and EBRD to lend to beneficiaries of Organization assistance.