New Twinning Project for Communications Regulatory Agency

On 13 February 2007, a new twinning project to support the Communications Regulatory Agency (CRA) was presented by  Mr. Andre Lys, Head of Operations in the EC Delegation to BiH, H.E. Alessandro Fallavollita, Ambassador of Italy and the Director General of BiH’s Communications Regulatory Agency, Mr. Kemal Huseinovic, along with his Italian counterparts Senator Roberto Napoli and Vincenzo Lobianco of Italy’s regulator AGCOM.

 

The new twinning project is the follow-on of one that started in June 2005 and was completed after fourteen months of successful cooperation. It is designed to help CRA to become an independent regulator that consistently applies European Union directives in communication sector regulation.

 

Mr. Lys said that telecommunications and broadcasting are areas where Bosnia and Herzegovina has made significant progress in the past years but stressed that some issues in these sectors remain to be solved. He said that electronic media are in constant evolution and keeping up with it is an ongoing challenge for regulators. Therefore, the transfer of knowledge and know-how is vital for BiH to be able to fulfil its obligation not only under the future Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) but also, more importantly, in the context of its preparation for EU membership.

 

H.E. Allessandro Fallavolita highlighted the importance of this sector for the future of BiH and said the aim of the project is to enable CRA to provide the best possible monitoring service of this sector and thus contribute to the harmonisation of local standards with those of the EU.

 

Mr Kemal Huseinovic, Director General of the CRA, stated that mid-term priorities are the full reform of the Public Broadcast System (PBS) and independence of CRA. He said the new project would help CRA to better prepare for the successful implementation of the law on PBS, introduction of new technologies in the telecommunications sector and digital television in BiH.

 

Mr Vincenzo Lobianco of AGCOM noted that they plan to provide expertise and logistic support for 30 CRA experts who will be trained in Italy, divided into six groups.

 

The EU has provided 250,000 euro for this project.

Europa.ba