HUNGARY – TWINNING PROJECT

CHEMICAL SAFETY INSTITUTION BUILDING

Joint Summit Meeting^*

Budapest, August 28–29, 2001

*Supported by the Phare Twinning Project HU99/IB/SO01

CEJOEM 2001, Vol.7. No.2.:83-86

Introduction

The PHARE programmes of the National Public Health and Medical Officers’ Service (NPHMOS) of Hungary started in the year 2000, after the approval of the first project at the end of 1999. EU assistance has reached the level of altogether
14 million EUR for three projects until now, and we have submitted two more proposals for the Country Operational Programme 2002, which constitute important steps towards accomplishing the tasks defined for the NPHMOS in the National Programme of the Adoption of the "Acquis Communautaire".

The main objective of the PHARE project HU9910-01 “Public Health Laboratories” is to contribute to

• the completion of the infrastructure of the Hungarian public health authorities responsible for the identification and monitoring of relevant chemical, physical and microbiological agents – including infrastructural development, control, sampling and analytical equipment and extensive staff training in professional skills;
• institution development and capacity building in the field of chemical safety, involving the strengthening of the toxicological information and control systems, the creation of a widely accessible database on risk assessment, communication and data exchange facilities, infrastructure at central and regional institutes for risk assessment in the fields of environmental and occupational health, food hygiene, and radiological safety.

This is the concise formulation of the two main lines of the development objectives as set out in the Financing Memorandum, but the tasks and activities during two years were defined in a much more complex structure by the current programme documents. These tasks included the planning of laboratory acquisitions as well as training schemes, mostly developed by qualified personnel of the NPHMOS, with input from experts contracted by the Ministry of Health of Hungary.

Naturally, this work also highlighted the need for adaptive change within the large organisation of the Hungarian Public Health Service with its various functions ranging from health at work to ambient air quality monitoring. The central element of “EU acquis related” capacity building became the area of chemical safety after the adoption of the comprehensive Act XXV of 2000 by the Hungarian Parliament. Contribution to this process was the main goal outlined in the Twinning Covenant taking effect on 15 September 2000. The one-year co-operation with the KEMI of Sweden and the HSE of Great Britain helped upgrading institutional capacities in the new Hungarian legal context of chemical safety, but also proved to all partners that Hungary had already been able to get well prepared for the accession to the EU also in this field.

The responsible project leaders, the officials of the Hungarian Ministry of Health and the NPHMOS stated at the closing summit session at the end of August 2001 in Budapest that twinning had become a real and long-lasting partnership among the participants. They will seek possibilities to officially continue this process through new project schemes, based on the outstanding results of the first year of common work. The team-worker attitude and professional excellence of the Swedish Pre-accession Adviser as well as his Swedish and British colleagues have laid down good foundations for the future work, with a real European dimension.

The PHARE Programme has been instrumental in developing an integrated
approach throughout the different fields of inspection, and the forthcoming projects will help building up an information system that is to support the nationwide network of the more than 150 public health institutes. All these projects in the health sector of Hungary show a good example of how a justified amount of investment and the related institutional development can give new impetus to activities in most areas of public health.