On 24 July 2007, the Final Conference of the EU ITR Project – Technical Assistance for the Transposition and Implementation of Technical Regulations – was held in Sarajevo. The EU invested 1.2 million Euro in this 18-month project.

EU ITR was devised to help BiH fulfil the conditions for export into the EU and CEFTA countries, and later on into World Trade Organisation (WTO) member states, which are related to proving the safety of products. It concerns the protection of lives and the health of citizens, domestic animals and the environment, and the protection of consumers from unsafe products. This is regulated by some 2,000 acts in the EU. Apart from the transposition of regulations, the project provided capacity building for technical infrastructure for conformity assessment of products with the regulations, as well as the building of official food and feed control system. Until this task is completed, BiH will not be able to make use of the EU extraordinary trade measures according to which it can export into the EU almost any product without tariff or quantitative restrictions, providing it can prove conformity with EU product safety regulations.

Mr. Kjartan Bjornsson, Head of Section for Economic Development and Natural Resources of the Delegation of the European Commission to BiH, explained that technical regulations are of fundamental importance both to improve BiH’s trade and also to protect the health of consumers and the environment. A legislative framework is essential for the single market to function. BiH must develop quality infrastructure and its policy must be to transpose and enforce relevant EU legislation. The Technical Assistance Project ending today played a very important role in supporting the transposition and harmonisation of legislation, which fulfils the Stabilisation and Association Agreement requirements and which is an approximation of the EU Acquis (EU laws) and WTO regulations. The project was composed of three different components, each working with different partners/beneficiaries, and the excellent co-operation led to considerable improvements, but there is still a lot to be done and deficiencies in many sectors which must be addressed. The importance attached to these tasks, and the proven capacity of the institutions to co-operate, have led to IPA 2007 funds being earmarked to further develop quality infrastructure.

Mr. Nenad Pandurevic, Assistant Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations (MoFTER), stressed that it is vital to implement EU standards, so that BiH companies can export to the EU and other markets. Only thus can local companies take advantage of the trade preferences offered by the EU and improve the current trade deficit. He added that a technical framework which protects consumers is an important step towards the EU. The key institutions to do the job have been established, but the challenge for BiH is to implement all the regulations. This will be a long process and – despite the encouraging results so far, which prove that there is a degree of capacity – the overall capacity of BiH institutions must advance further.

Experts involved in the technical assistance reviewed some of the results achieved:

Component 1 – Safety of Industrial Products

• Support to MoFTER
• 2 Directives transposed into Draft BiH Ordinances
• Market Surveillance Agency established and staffed
• Assessment of the ability of BiH laboratories to implement the Ordinances

Component 2 – Food Sector

• Food Safety Agency established and staffed
• Transposition of 31 + 24 food safety Technical Regulations (TRs)
• Assessment of the ability of BiH laboratories to implement the TRs

Component 3 – WTO/TBT

• Support to the Institute for Standardisation BiH
• Establishment of WTO/TBT Enquiry and Notification Point

Staff from the beneficiary institutions participated in over 100 trainings, study trips, working groups and other capacity-building activities.