The CARDS Regional IPR Programme

CARDS (EU financial and technical programme)
Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation

Scope & objectives

The European Commission has launched the Stabilisation and Association process (SAp) in 2000 setting the overall legal framework for the future economic and political relationships between the EU and each of the CARDS countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro (S&M) and the former yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (fyROM).

In this context, CARDS Regional IP Programme was designed to support the economic development of the five CARDS countries through effective and adequate protection and enforcement of industrial and intellectual property rights in line with the requirements of the SAA and WTO, with the wider objective to support the participation of these countries in the Stabilisation and Association Process, SAP.