Closing meeting of Twinning Light Project in Serbia

On Friday 25 July 2014, the closing meeting for the EU funded Twinning Light Project SR13/IB/AG01TL „Assistance to Managing Authority of the Serbian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management in elaboration of IPARD 2014-2020 Program, support to accreditation and training”, was held.

The project was implemented by Agrarmarkt Austria (AMA), the Austrian Paying Agency for Agriculture and Rural Development.
The overall objective of this Twinning Light Project was to advance the preparation of the Serbian Agriculture and Rural Development Sector for the implementation of the EU´s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The project purpose was to strengthen the institutional capacities of the Managing Authority of the Serbian Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection in order to implement the Rural Development component of the Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPARD). IPARD is the European Commission's principal instrument to assist accession countries in modernizing and improving the competitiveness of their agriculture and rural economies.

The project, with a budget of € 250.000 was financed by the European Commission and the activities were implemented within 8 months, until end of July 2014.
The project benchmarks were achieved through co shared efforts from experts of the Serbian Managing Authority and international experts coming from Austrian, Bavarian and French agricultural institutions, mainly Ministry of Agriculture and Paying Agency. The commonly agreed work plan focused on the elaboration of a draft IPARD II Program as well as on the development and further elaboration of Manuals of Procedures. The Twinning Light Project actively supported capacity building through on the job training to prepare the Managing Authority for the upcoming IPARD II Program implementation.

All project partners emphasised on the excellent collaboration and are looking forward to continuing on new projects in the near future.








Representatives from Serbia, Austria,
Bavaria and the EU Delegation