Certificate award ceremony for over 40 participants of a training programme within the EU-funded Project for Fiscal Policy Support to BiH (EUFPS) was held in Brčko on Tuesday, October 21, 2008. Mr. Boris Iarochevitch, First Counsellor of the Delegation of the European Commission to BiH and Mr. Boris Petkov, Head of the EUFPS project, took part in the ceremony.

The objective of the EUFPS project was to strengthen capacities of BiH authorities to devise and execute fiscal policies and improve the management of public finances at all levels of governments. The project was also providing support in improvement of data bases of the authorities’ finances, as the project’s team assessed that BiH’s statistical capacities were still not in accordance with the European standards.

Mr. Iarochevitch explained that the main target of the project were the civil servants, as they could improve their daily work and therefore bring the country and its citizens closer to the European standards. “It is important to know that having successfully completed this training makes you better prepared for assessing economic data and analysing new economic and fiscal developments.”, said Mr. Iarochevitch announcing that the Delegation of the European Commission to BiH would use all learned lessons from this project to develop similar programmes in the future.

The Project team together with participating governments’ staff has improved and developed macroeconomic/fiscal analysis and forecasting models, hence providing powerful tools for research policy in support of budget preparation and negotiations with international partners. Mr. Petkov stressed that the EUFPS had many achievements, but he deemed that the biggest strength of the project was bringing together the state and entities’ ministries of finances, Brčko District Revenue Authority and BiH Indirect Taxation Authority. “Working together, coordinating and providing better fiscal policy for the future of entire country, of course, on the road towards the European Union, through implementation of this project, I believe we managed to establish very good relations with all these relevant institutions and partners.", concluded Mr. Petkov.

Since February 2007, the EUFPS project organised trainings in Econometrics, Flow of Funds, Revenue Forecasting, Macroeconomics and Public Finance in Sarajevo and Banja Luka for the employees of state and entity ministries of finance, Brcko District Revenue Authority, BiH Indirect Taxation Authority and the Central Bank of BiH.

One of the participants in the training programme, Ms. Mirela Kadić, employee of the Department for Macroeconomic analysis of BiH Indirect Taxation Authority Steering Board stated that gained knowledge would be used in her everyday work. “I think that the trainings were very useful, that everything that we heard will definitely be used in a practice in our everyday work, and especially things that we learned in the area of public finances.”, pointed out Ms. Kadić.

As an additional benefit of the ceremony, Mr. Daniele Franco, one of the leading fiscal policy analysts in the European Union, gave a lecture on fiscal rules and budget coordination practice of European countries, their actual problems and possible solutions.