The presentation of the Twinning Project Support to the Institute for Standardisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was held on Friday 2 December 2011 in the premises of the EU Delegation and EUSR in Sarajevo.

The project is of vital importance for the development of BiH Quality Infrastructure. Long term objective of the EU support to BiH in this area is to ensure protection of health and safety of citizens. In order to achieve this goal goods must meet certain criteria before they are placed on the market. In that sense, the project aims to improve the transparency and access to information on preparation of standards at national, European and international levels as well as the information system for standardisation to be compatible with International and European Organisations for Standardisation.

The project is financed by the European Union from the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA 2009) in the amount of 500 000 Euro.

In his welcome address, the Head of the Operations Section for Economic Development, Natural Resources and Infrastructure at the EU Delegation to BiH Johann Hesse said: Standards are an instrument for economic and industrial integration and are used as a technical basis for the support of EU legislation in order to ensure Free Movement of Goods. With this project we shall improve the transparency and access to information on preparation of standards at national, European and international levels, as well as to improve the information system for standardisation to be compatible with International and European Organisations for Standardisation.

This twinning project will last 16 months and is implemented by a Consortium, consisting of the Spanish Association for Standardisation and Certification (AENOR), German Institute for Standardisation (DIN) and Bulgarian Institute for Standardisation (BDS), led by AENOR.