The Final conference of the Twinning project “EU support to capacity building and gradual Union acquis alignment in the veterinary sector of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, Twinning number: BA 18 IPA AG 02 19, was held on 24 April 2025, in Sarajevo. The project was successfully implemented by the Austrian Agency for health and food safety, as a lead partner, in collaboration with Ministry of Agriculture of Croatia, and Ministry of Agriculture and Food of France, as junior partners. The beneficiary institution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, namely Veterinary Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina in cooperation with competent authorities of the entities and Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina, provided substantial support to the project. The CFCA provided administrative support to Croatian institutions and experts that participated in the project implementation.
The project, valued at 3,000,000 EUR, began on 1 September 2020, and concluded after 56 months on 30 April 2025. It focused on three key components: animal health, animal welfare, and animal by-products. The core purpose of the project was to modernise and restructure agro-industrial sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina including economic empowerment of life in rural areas. Over the past four and a half years, experts from Austria, France and Croatia have worked together with their colleagues from Bosnia and Herzegovina to improve the legislative framework in veterinary sector and to align it with the European Union acquis, in the course of which they have delivered a series of training sessions, seminars, practical demonstrations and simulations of numerous procedures in this field.
In addition to capacity building and the development of legislative framework, the project also strengthened the day-to-day work of veterinary inspectors and officials in BiH through practical training in field conditions.
Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and complexities during implementation, all project objectives were successfully achieved. Through this project, the veterinary sector of Bosnia and Herzegovina gained valuable knowledge for harmonization with EU requirements and standards, improved the skills of staff of various services and thus increased the potential for better protection of human and animal health, as well as products of animal origin.
