European Commission

Projects for twinning 

Four civil society organizations from Macedonia have twinned with three associations from the European Union member-countries as part of the so-called EU Twinning NGO program, implemented through the European Commission – Directorate for Environment. The association “Eko svest” from Skopje twinned with “Millieukontakt Oost-Europa” from Holland; The Macedonian Environmental Association and The Association for Wild Flora and Fauna Protection from Kavadarci twinned with BVCF from Spain; and the Journalist Legal Enviro Centre “ERINA” from Skopje twinned with the “Kalisto” organization from Greece.

The association implemented projects whose goal was to contribute to improving the environment in the non-EU countries by exchanging experiences and knowledge gained with the EU member-countries.

Besides that, the projects aimed to strengthen the links between the civil society associations and the countries. Such projects have been implemented in 11 other countries from the region of Southeast, Central and Eastern Europe: Turkey, Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Armenia, Craotia and Ukraine. About 40 civil society organizations from the European continent were part of the 19 project implemented in 2006.

In order to establish stronger links and cooperation between all of them, and not only between the twinned  associations, the European Commission put the Regional Environmental Centre from Hungary in charge of setting up a discussion forum that will enable the associations to communicate and exchange opinions and ideas on various subjects of relevance to their work. This forum will also enable the associations to send each other the latest information related to their activities, as well as to agree some joint future activities.