The Deputy State Secretariat for Consumer Protection of the Ministry of National Development in conjunction with the Hungarian Authority for Consumer Protection (HACP) is wishing to put great emphasis on the elaboration and deepening of professional cooperation with partner organizations of neighboring countries and of the region. In order to achieve this, the Ministry – together with the experts of the HACP – is planning to organize introductory visits and professional discussions with already existing and expected future collaborative partners of the neighboring states and of the Western Balkans.
Exchange of communication practices and market surveillance practices were the highlighted topics of the workshop since the Bosnian partner is wishing to use Hungarian experiences and practices as well as improving its own national system.
As beneficiaries of several EU-funded projects, they had managed to implement major improvements on national level thanks to their featured project partners eg. Germany and the UK, but on the other hand, bilateral cooperation agreements are playing an important role as well, just enough to mention practices that might be implemented in the framework of the partnership with Hungary.
On behalf of the Hungarian delegation, Deputy State Secretary Mr. László Koszorús expressed his gratitude to the Bosnian Party for their kind invitation and stressed his commitment to intensify professional collaboration and international partnership. It is crucial for the Ministry to form a well functioning dialogue between professional partners, because effective and efficient consumer protection and market surveillance may only be realized through the cooperation of European and –in a narrow context– of regional competent authorities, knowledge and implementation of international practices could contribute to a more effective task performance on national level as well.
Moving forward on the agenda of the first day, experts carried out discussions on the communication practices of the authorities, stakeholder relations, recent improvements of customer service, websites and smartphone applications, followed with consultation on emerging questions of market surveillance on the second day. Wrapping up the meeting, the Hungarian Party – while showing appreciation to the recent achievements – formulated a set of recommendations for the Bosnian Party on the possible way forward to further improve their national system. The Parties concluded that the professional meeting was mutually fruitful, therefore the cooperation is expected to be continued – with close observation of the Ministry – with equal intensity and with a possible extension to regional projects and EU-funded twinning projects and other study visits.