18 Dec Official opening of “Justice and Home affairs” Programme
Under the framework of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021, on December 13th 2019 due to launching of “Justice and Home affairs” Programme an opening conference was held
Welcoming speech for the conference participants has been held by the Ministry of Justice State’s Secretary Mr Kristian Turkalj and Norwegian Ambassador in Croatia Mr Haakon Blankenborg. Also, the representatives of Programme partners – Mr Audun Hognes Berg from Norwegian Courts Administration and Ms Sophio Gelashvili from Council of Europe have addressed the conference attendances.
Head of Department for Strategic Development and Projects within the Ministry of Justice Mr Darko Ožvald, has presented projects financed through the Programme.
Projects are:
- “Reconstruction of the Municipal court building in Split and promotion of e-services”, worth around 10 million EUR. As a part of the project, in cooperation with the Council of Europe, three judges will be seconded for 12 months to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg;
- “Strengthening human rights protection and public safety through improving capacities of the Croatian Probation Service”. Intended financial means for this project are 2,1 million EUR;
- “Revising the methodology of the evaluation of judges’ performance”, worth 400.000 EUR
- “Reinforcing the system of court-annexed mediation”, worth 1,5 million EUR
In the beginning of May 2016 Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and EU have signed Agreements on Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area (EEA) and Norwegian Financial Mechanism for period 2014 – 2021 with a purpose of decreasing social and economic disparities and strengthening bilateral relations with beneficiary countries.
Memorandum of Understanding on Implementation of Norway Financial Mechanism for period 2014 – 2021 between Kingdom of Norway and Republic of Croatia has been signed on July 3rd 2018. Amount of financial support available to Croatia for a seven-year period is 46,6 million EUR.
The Programme Agreement for “Justice and Home Affairs” between Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Croatian Ministry for Regional Development and European Union Funds has been signed on June 4th 2019.
The Programme benefits from 13 million EUR grants from Norway, while Croatian contribution is 2,3 million EUR. Amount of 125.000 EUR is allocated from the Fund for Bilateral Relations.
Aim of the Programme is to strengthen the rule of law.
The Programme will be implemented by the Croatian Ministry of Justice in cooperation with the national and Norwegian partners, as well as with the Council of Europe.