It is a follow-up to the closed negotiating chapter on Intellectual Property Law, it will be financed by the EU and implemented over the next 17 months in cooperation with Denmark as the partner country.
EUR 1 million is intended for strengthening the administrative capacity, the adjustment of Croatian legislation to that of the EU, and support to the Information Centre of the Intellectual Property Office, which will coordinate the project; EUR 270,000 is intended for equipment.
The project is designed for the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, the Customs Authority and the State Inspectorate, stated Ljiljana Kuterovac, Vice Director of the State Intellectual Property Office.
Director of the Central Finance and Contracting Agency Marija Tufekčić thanked the Delegation for the continuous work on this project, emphasizing that a twinning project holds significant importance in the process of capacity building of law-implementing institutions, since it enables best practices and knowledge transfer from EU member states, but also builds cooperation and partnership and strengthens bilateral cooperation between partner countries.
In the 2001-2006 period, a total of 59 twinning and 19 twinning light projects were approved for funding from the pre-accession assistance in Croatia, within CARDS and PHARE programmes. The total value of these projects amounts to around EUR 57.5 million, and in Phare 2006 programme alone these projects count for 12.7 percent of all projects. By the end of this year, 20 twinning projects worth EUR 14.1 million are planned to be signed within the IPA 2007 pre-accession programme.
