Today (Thursday, 23 May 2013), Dr. Fatmir BESIMI, Deputy Prime Minister in charge for European Affaires, and H.E. Mrs Laurence AUER, Ambassador of France in Macedonia, signed a cooperation agreement for the years 2013 and 2014.

This agreement will enable the implementation of several technical assistance projects to the benefit of the Secretariat for European Affairs, in the framework of the French bilateral administrative cooperation, aimed at supporting the European integration process of the Republic of Macedonia. The cooperation between the Embassy of France and the Secretariat for European Affairs will be focused on three main areas:

-   Support to the implementation and coordination of the IPA funds, in areas such as communication strategy support for creating an IPA web page, communication evaluation, writing on web and social media and in information systems, seminars, and student missions in France for managing the EU funds, etc.

- Strengthening of the capacities of the Training Centre on European Affairs

- Specialized trainings on negotiations skills and EU sectoral policies, by supporting the training of employees of the Sector for Integration, the EU sectoral policy on the acquis communautaire, conference on the creation and the challenges of the European Union.

In order to implement these projects, the French Embassy will involve highly skilled experts from several French institutions, such as ENA (National School of Administration), DATAR (Prime Minister’s Dpt), Ministry of Finance and Economy, Ministry of Labour and Employment..

These administrative cooperation activities will be carried out in 2013 and 2014, in close partnership with the Macedonian institutions involved in the European integration process.

The Secretariat for European Affairs, in cooperation with the French Embassy, continues the activities for strengthening the administrative capacities for implementing the communication and transparency activities in relation to the usage of IPA and other EU funds by the Republic of Macedonia.