H.E. Ambassador Dimitris Kourkoulas, Head of the European Commission Delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina attended the Final conference on 1,2 million euro EU project „Support for Implementation of the Functional Review Recommendations in the Agriculture Sector“ that took place today in Sarajevo. The Conference brought together all major stakeholders in the sector of Agriculture, including representatives of all relevant ministries in BiH and the Project Team.

Mr. Johan Hesse, Head of Operational Section for Economic Reform and Natural Resources of the Delegation of the European Commission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a Chairman said that the main aim of the Conference was not only to present major achievements of the project but to be the place where the most relevant issues and future priorities in the field would be discussed.

Ambassador Kourkoulas reminded the participants that the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) is one of the key European Union policies and one of the building blocks on which the EU was built, and that EU spends 40% of the budget on the sector. He underlined the need for Bosnia and Herzegovina to harmonise its policies and to foster the creation of structures required for the absorption of future IPA funds. “It is clear that BiH needs to increase the competitiveness of its agricultural products by ensuring that they can provide domestic and international markets with a stable supply of safe and good quality food.”, noted Ambassador Kourkoulas.

He also added that the main issue was to improve the environment and diversity of rural economy by creating jobs and growth opportunities in order to make rural areas attractive as a place to live and work. Ambassador Kourkoulas concluded his address welcoming the adoption of the Law on Agriculture and Rural Development of BiH, and urged all relevant stakeholders to continuously strengthen the capacities in this sector.

Mladen Zirojević, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH explained the coordination role of the Ministry in the Agriculture sector and said that it gradually develops its capacities at all levels. Mr. Zirojević presented main achievements of the Ministry in this area that were realised with the support of the European Union, first of all, the preparation of the First Agricultural Report, Draft Law on Agriculture adopted in May this year, and other vital documents that should accelerate the progress in this sector. He underlined that every achievement was made as a result of the participation of all relevant stakeholders. Therefore, Mr. Zirojević called for the continuation of the good cooperation for the benefit of all.

During the day, representatives of the Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Sector at the entity level and Brcko District presented most current priorities in their course of action, where the need for harmonisation of agricultural policies among them came up as a important issue. In the second part of the Conference, issues discussed by the members of the Project Team and their partners were institutional and policy lessons learnt and future planned support to the sector from IPA programme.

About SESMARD

The Project, implemented by Vakakis International commenced in March 2006 and ended in September 2008.

The overall objective of the project was to support and strengthen the capacity of the public administration in the sector of agriculture in BiH, to establish efficient and competitive agricultural sector, capable of contributing to the BiH economic development and prepared for the EU integration.

The initial project objective was to support a transposition of the functional organisation of BiH agricultural administration at the state level into a distinct Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

SESMARD was assessed as one of the most successful EC projects in the sector of agriculture. Its main achievement relates to the creation of the state level competencies withinBiH Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations to coordinate the international matters (SAA, CEFTA, and WTO) and to harmonize the policy, strategy, subsidies, registers, payments, etc. as the issues which are according to Dayton PA under the responsibility of the entities.

For more information about the Project, please visit its official web-site: www.sesmard.org