Eg. product name, manufacturer, dealer, ...

MENU Close

• Entrepreneurs
• Business information
• Certification
• CAFIA laboratories
• CAFIA opinions
• More information
• Consumers
• How to know the food market
• Results of CAFIA inspections
• Consumer rights
• List of risky sites
• Hoaxes
• Other visitors
• Press Releases
• Internships at CAFIA
• Public contracts

On 29 and 30 May 2005 the European Commission organized in Cairo a workshop entitled “Support to the EU – Egypt Association Agreement”. The objective of this workshop was to inform representatives of Egyptian public authorities and institutions that are interested in participation in twinning projects within the framework of support to the Association Agreement in MEDA countries (Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, the Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Cyprus, and Malta) about the twinning programme and the possibilities of its use. The participants in the workshop were informed about the overall procedure for submitting, approving, and conducting twinning projects and about the functions of the Project Administration Office, which is an equivalent of the Czech Centre for Foreign Assistance established by the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic.

Representatives of two old Member States and one new Member State were invited to the workshop to present their experience with twinning projects funded from EU sources, both in the presence of project provider (Denmark and Italy) and project receiver (Czech Republic). A representative of the Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority (CAFIA), Dita Havlová, presented CAFIA´s experience with preparation and implementation of twinning projects funded from EU sources within the pre-accession PHARE fund.

Within the PHARE 1998 programme the CAFIA implemented a twinning project entitled “Support of the Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection”. The project provider was the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. In this project, the CAFIA drew funds not only for training and consultancy, but also for purchasing communication technologies. The project was finished in 2001.

Another twinning project “Strengthening Food Safety Policy”, initiated within the PHARE 2002 programme, will be finished this year. In addition to the twinning part that included mainly training and consultancy and that was successfully finished in June 2004, the objective of the project is to implement the quality management system at the CAFIA according to ISO 9001:2000 and to establish common food safety information system of six supervisory bodies that are involved in inspections of food or feed. Investment sources for purchasing laboratory equipment are also drawn in the framework of this project.

The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority has prepared drafts of other twinning projects with aim to increase its qualification and deepen its co-operation with similar supervisory bodies from other EU countries.