Division 1 Budget lines: 17 04 07 01 and 17 04 04 01

Legal basis

• Regulation (EC) No 882/2004, Article 51 and Article 66(1)(b),

• Directive 2000/29/EC, and in particular Article 2(1)(i).

The action to be financed under this budget is aimed at the development, organisation and delivery of training courses and workshops or seminars in the Community and in third countries in order to ensure that personnel performing official controls are adequately trained. Through these training courses and seminars, government officials, national authorities and laboratory experts shall be informed about and trained on Community feed and food and plant health legislation and the control requirements for feed and food and plants and plant products to be allowed on the Community markets.

The Commission contributes to the training of officials in the Member States in that it supplements the training received at national level with training in aspects that are relevant from a Community point of view.

For 2009, training actions will concern the following subjects:

• Food and feed control procedures based on HACCP (hazard analysis critical control point) principles; audit techniques to verify implementation of HACCP systems,

• Animal health prevention and controls,

• Food hygiene and control: fish, meat and dairy products,

• Prevention, control and eradication of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies,

• Plant health controls,

• Food contact materials,

• GMO analysis,

• EU food rules and food import requirements,

• Diagnosis and control of highly pathogenic avian influenza,

• Other animal health and welfare, plant health and food safety issues, cooperation with other international organisations on food safety training.

  (EUR 12 300 000)

Financing through public procurement.

The global budgetary envelope reserved for the procurements during the year amounts to EUR 12 300 000.

For each of the technical issues mentioned above one or more specific service contracts will be signed. It is estimated that around 14 service contracts will be signed. External contractors are mainly involved in the organisational and logistical aspects of the training activities.

The aim is to launch the procurement procedure as soon as possible (approximately between March and June) in order to sign the contracts during 2009.

EUR 12 000 000 (financing of food safety measures under Regulation (EC) No 882/2004 and Directive 2000/29/EC) out of EUR 12 300 000 will be managed and implemented by the Agency (Commission Decision 2008/544/EC^f1). The remaining EUR 300 000 will be used by the Commission to cover the programme on GMO.