It was held last 25th July in Mtskheta (Georgia), at National Intellectual Property Center of Georgia – Sakpatenti, second meeting of the Twinning project coordinated by Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food, Forestry and Tourism Policies (MiPAAFT) – Department of the Central Inspectorate for Quality Safeguarding and Anti-frauds of Foodstuffs and Agricultural Products (ICQRF), with support of Informest for financial and administrative management.

The Georgian beneficiary and representatives from EU delegation expressed great satisfaction for first results achieved, and in particular for the assessment report for the establishment of the Law on origin, that will be completed within end of the year. During the meeting, partners discussed also on achievements and results of the first study visit held in Italy last June.

The Twinning instrument was created with the aim of providing assistance to the candidate countries or to countries from the neighbourhood area, supporting them in the institution building process and in the administrative and regulatory improvement of local administrations to the EU acquis. Established by the Commission in 1998, the twinning instrument has recently been reviewd in its contractual scheme, and it was made also a sound revision of norms regulating bodies in charge for administrative and financial management (Mandated Body).

Informest, that is acting as Mandated Body since 2003, has been confirmed as “Full Mandated Body”. Before the reform 50 Italian institutions were accredited as “Mandated Body, while nowadays only 7 bodies in Italy are responsible for administrative and financial management.