Heydar Babayev: "Azerbaijan attaches special importance to cooperation with European commission"

The press service for the Economic Development Ministry told Day.Az that the sides exchanged views on the National Actions Plan for 2007-2010 in the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy, as well as discussion of the twinning projects implementation.

It was noted that Azerbaijan pays special attention to cooperation with international organizations and financial institutions, as well as the European commission. Reforms are conducted in various fields in Azerbaijan from allocated grants and technical aid.

It is expected to conduct reforms in the Ministry of Industry and Energy, Ministry of Economic Development, State Agency for Standardization, Metrology and Patents, parliament and prosecutor general's office under support of the European Commission. The EU Coordination Bureau on technical aid and department of the Economic Development Ministry for foreign investments and assistance coordination are functioning for coordination of projects in Azerbaijan.

In turn, Sirel noted that allocation of grants is envisioned for reforms in various spheres of Azerbaijan.

The allocated means in 2008 will cover justice and in 2009 agriculture.

The meeting participants also discussed conduction of twinning conference, initiated and support by the European commission, in Baku in autumn this year.

It should be noted that twinning mechanism was first applied in 1998 for implementation of the project of institutional construction in the countries nominated for EU membership. The program envisions improvement of national legislation, as well as strengthening state institutional and regulatory potential of the beneficiary countries.

The Twinning tool in the Tacis national actions program on Azerbaijan was coordinated in 2006 in the result of discussions held with EU in 2005.

/Day.Az/