Progress Report

The Police Forum initiative is giving advice and supporting activities aiming at capacity building through specific police trainings. It is also involved in political advocacy and helps the Southeast European region to formulate strategies against organized crime. The activities are fully in line with the conclusions of the London Conference on Organized Crime in SEE (November 2002) and the EU-Western Balkans Forum (Thessaloniki 2003).

The initiative is contributing to the overall objective of the Stability Pact’s activities on Justice and Home Affairs to promote national reforms among the countries of the South Eastern Europe through regional cooperation and closer international links.

Although important reforms have been taken, further reforms and enhanced capacity building efforts are needed in JHA areas, including police training and regional law enforcement cooperation. Progress can be expected only with a clear and firm political commitment from governments, a commitment that is a condition of the internationally – financed technical assistance programmes.

At present, the Police Forum initiative has developed the following projects: Regional Police Training modules for senior police officers, Organized Crime Training Network for operational managers (organized crime units), the Stolen car project, the Antidrug networking and the Border checking points project.

Regional Police Training

Police Forum has been the framework of implementation for the specialized police modules. The experience that Association of European Police Colleges (AEPC) has gained in the EU accession process has been used at the regional level with the SEE countries. The initially planned three-year period for the modules is very close to its end. From the 14 themes agreed within the Working Group (see annex) 12 have been already implemented by AEPC.

For the other two modules:

The WT III Secretariat, together with the two co-chairs and the experts of the AEPC will start a “feed-back” process to see if the already trained police officers still occupy the same position as during the implementation and what has happened with the knowledge, insights and networks acquired during the trainings. The results, conclusions and recommendations will be included in a special chapter into the final Report that AEPC will produce at the end of the module implementations.

Organized Crime Training Network for operational managers

The project has been launched this year. A group of Local Contact Persons, appointed within each Organized Crime Unit from the SEE countries, will be trained on the details of the project within one week (mid of December) in Austria.

A Slovenian Project Manager will be appointed and the curricula for the training modules will be developed, taking into consideration the needs expressed by the regional partners.

The trainings within OCTN will respect the agreed “roaming principle”, having the same “students” three times one week in three different countries of the region. In each week a different OC topic will be addressed. There will be two-three weeks breaks between the one-week modules, when the “students” will be asked to prepare a “homework” study. We agreed that asking the hosting country to provide with trainers/experts in one-two days on specific case studies would enhance the regional ownership.

The donor group - formed by Austria, Norway, Switzerland and United Kingdom - has remained open to other donors.

Stolen cars

The Police Forum Working Group has considered that it is a very important subject and it has been treated accordingly in our activities. A follow-up conference, planned for the end of November in Ljubljana, will analyse the steps been taken since the adoption of the Program of Action in November last year. Continuing our efforts to avoid duplications and overlappings, it will be organized as a back-to-back meeting with the SECI Centre’s Task Force on stolen vehicles and representatives of the Central European Initiative, which will be co-financing a specific project on this matter developed by the Italian Ministry of Interior for next year.

Antidrug networking

Another activity initiated under the auspices of the Police Forum is the meeting of the SEE chiefs of Antidrug-units, organized within the SECI Centre in Bucharest. The main objectives of the meeting were achieved: continuing informal contacts between the chiefs of Antidrug units and discussing the National Antidrug strategies. Among the conclusions:

It is very important to mention here that I 24/7 system, developed by Interpol, has been appreciated by specialists as the most reliable system ever developed. Extending it to the borders (main checking points) has been identified as the next priority, on short term, in our fight against OC and terrorism. The idea complements the European Commission’s CARDS program to strengthen the Interpol’s National Central Bureaus. We have contacted the Interpol’s experts that are ready to implement the project as soon as funds would be available.

The Border Police representatives have to be involved more actively in our Police Forum activities, as they are the interface with the criminal networks at the borders.

To be able to identify stolen vehicles, traffickers and terrorists at the border will represent a huge step for the region.

In this context, a training project developed by the Italian Ministry of Interior and co-financed by Central European Initiative for 2005 is welcome. The Police Forum Working Group will support this initiative by making available its own expertise.

The Police Forum Working Group encourages donors and international organizations to support the implementation of all these projects. As main priorities, it is very important to finalize the Training modules and to find funds for the remaining two modules.

Click here to receive the overview of module training from 2001 to 2004