News
3/22/2019 11:20
Deputy Prime
Minister in charge of European Affairs and National IPA Coordinator, Bujar
Osmani chaired the fourth IPA Monitoring Committee together with David Cullen
from the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG
NEAR), which was attended by representatives of the European Commission and the
Delegation of the EU in North Macedonia.
"The
implementation of IPA in the Republic of North Macedonia follows good dynamics,
which is of particular importance given the sensitivity of this period for our
European integration. Although we face certain challenges, we have already
closed the IPA 1 programme and now we can fully dedicate to the implementation
of IPA 2. We have ambitious programmes which implementation will significantly
influence the improvement of the living standard of the citizens, but they will
also have special significance in the approximation with the EU standards of
the institutions, the state and the country in general, "said Deputy Prime
Minister Osmani.
In addition to
the meeting, the status of implementation of IPA 1 and 2, as well as all audits
commissioned by DG NEAR were duly reviewed by the national institutions and the
following information was ascertained: IPA 2 programming almost fully (96%)
completed; for one fifth of them, or for 23% of the programmes contracts are
concluded; and for a certain part i.e. 12% of the concluded contracts, payments
have already been made to the contracting parties.
The monitoring
committee is the highest form of cooperation with the services of the European
Union, which aims to review the overall effectiveness, efficiency, quality,
coherence, coordination and compliance of the implementation of IPA activities
and the fulfilment of their objectives, as well as the exchange of information
and approvals for the activities that will be undertaken in the following
period.
Prior to the
start of the IPA Monitoring Committee meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Osmani had
a separate meeting with the representative from the Directorate for enlargement
(DG NEAR) David Kullen to discuss the reforms implemented in the process of
European integration of the Republic of North Macedonia.