The European Union is providing 33 new off-road vehicles worth €467,000 to be used by authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina for phytosanitary inspections and food controls and monitoring. The aim of this donation is to help Bosnia and Herzegovina to further build capacity in the food safety and phytosanitary sectors, and help the country to align with EU standards.

The keys to 14 of these vehicles were handed over by the Head of the Delegation of the European Union and EU Special Representative, Ambassador Johann Sattler, to the Director of the Food Safety Agency of BiH, Džemil Hajrić, the Minister of the FBiH Ministry of Agriculture, Šemsudin Dedić, and the Director of the FBiH Administration for Inspection Affairs, Anis Ajdinović. As a result of this donation, monitoring of food and the food chain will be faster, the period from the taking of a sample during phytosanitary border inspections to its final analysis will be shortened and the time spent on issuing phytosanitary certificates will be reduced.

The European Union is working to build capacity in BiH in the food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary sectors through several ongoing projects. Currently, there are three twinning projects in BiH worth six million euros, aiming to strengthen institutional capacities and bring these sectors in BiH in line with European Union legislation.