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On 23^rd March, a cross-border cooperation project between the Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority and the Saxon State Ministry for Social Affairs and Cohesion (Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Soziales und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt) has been launched in Karlovy Vary. The inspectorates in Ústí nad Labem and Plzeň are involved on behalf of CAFIA, while on the Saxon side the inspectorates in the regions of Dresden, Mittelsachsen, Pirna and Görlitz participate.

The aim of the project is to establish cooperation, to get acquainted with the inspections procedures of the project partner and to create a network of personal contacts of inspectors in the cross-border regions of the Czech Republic and Saxony in the field of official food inspections. The main focus of the project will be exchange visits of the staff from both partner authorities.

About twenty representatives of CAFIA and a similar number of representatives of the Saxon inspection authorities will take part in the project. The target group is mainly inspectors. The exchange visit will include a visit to a regional inspectorate or inspection body, where the activities of that authority related to food inspection will be presented, current problems and selected topics will be discussed, followed by visits to food business operators. These joint inspections are an important element of the project as direct experience and cooperation at the practical level always provides the most valuable information and allows new insights into the way surveillance authorities work. Visits to food business operators will be carried out within the scope of the competences of both supervisory authorities, and this time they are focused on public catering issue and e-commerce, as in the previous project with Saxony, CAFIA has not have the current competences in this area.

The project will last less than four months and will be concluded in the presence of the leaders of both project partners in Dresden, where the results will be summarised. The total budget of the project is approximately 55 thousand EUR, 85% of which will be reimbursed by the European Regional Development Fund.

For the Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority, this is the second project implemented jointly with Saxony and the sixth cross-border cooperation project in which CAFIA is involved. In 2005 and 2006, exchange visits were carried out in cooperation with Austria, in 2009 with Slovakia, in 2011 with the Free State of Saxony, in 2013 with the Free State of Bavaria and in 2019 with Poland, each time involving inspectorates close to the cross-border neighbour. The operational programmes for cross-border cooperation thus allow CAFIA to learn about the practical functioning of supervisory authorities with the same or similar competences in neighbouring countries and to establish contacts with them that can then be used in the future.

Article by: Světlana Bicková, Person responsible for the management of the project