TASK FORCE STATUS: Since 2000 - still active

The overall goals of the Police Forum Initiative are to enhance capacity building of national Police Services, train police investigators in fighting organised crime, as well as to foster police cooperation in South Eastern Europe. The work of the Police Forum initiative contributes in that sense to the broader Working Table III approach to Justice and Home Affairs and complements more specifically the Working Table III initiatives against organised crime (SPOC) and corruption (SPAI).

The Police Forum Initiative, through its various projects, supports the police reform processes under way in SEE which are aimed at complying with EU standards, through advise, coordination of activities or initiation of projects and assists in strengthening the regional institutions like the SECI Centre Bucharest and the South East European Police Chief Association (SEPCA). The Police Forum Initiative is involving key regional partners in order to ensure the regional ownership of these projects, as well as international organisations and donor countries to create a network of practitioners and avoid duplication of activities. Regional ownership of the projects on the longer term is indeed considered as of particular importance in the light of the transition process of the Stability Pact.

In parallel to its own projects, the Police Forum is also supporting the Police Cooperation Convention for SEE, signed in May 2006 at the initiative of the Austrian government. Future implementation projects are foreseen and are currently under discussions with the Austrian government and the EU Commission. The Police Forum also supports the Swiss Regional Community Policing Initiative, to be implemented within the National Police Services of the SEE region.

Find here-under information about:

• Projects of the Police Forum Initiative

• Project documents and Progress Reports

• History

• SEE Police Services

PFI project and initiatives → Organized Crime Training Network

The OCTN project aims at training specialised investigators from the SEE national police services in fighting organized crime.

Initially based on the conclusions of the London Conference on defeating organized crime in South Eastern Europe, held in November 2002, and based on a donor meeting held in Bern in May 2003, organised together with the SEE countries, the OCTN project is designed to last until 2011. The pre-project, called the inception phase, lasted 6 months and ended in April 2005. It served to design the project framework and objectives. A pre-project manager, Mrs Elisabeth Heer from the Federal Police of Switzerland, was in charge of this inception phase, which was concluded by the signing ceremony of the letter of intent on September 8 2005 in Belgrade.

The implementation of the project started in March 2005, under the guidance of a Steering Committee and a Slovenian Project Manager, Mr Peter Jeglic. The project contains a concrete training approach in which the participants discuss regional practical cases on organized crime, together with regional and international experts and analyse the cases according to European and international law and methods. The Police Forum has so far received a positive feedback from the SEE, saying that the OCTN training sessions are considered as very useful within the police environment.

Since the project implementation started, the project manager organised four Standard training courses, made up of three modules for operational managers in 2005 and 2006, as follows: a 3 week seminar on combating drugs trafficking, a 3 week seminar on fighting financial crime, a 3 week seminar on trafficking in human beings and a 3 week seminar on tackling extreme violence. Annually, 15 seminars and meetings for specialised investigators, local contact points and policy makers from the region have been organised by the project manager.

OCTN is a donor driven project under the umbrella of the Stability Pact. Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland and United Kingdom are the main donors. The Police Forum organises the Steering Committee meetings, which take decision on the project strategy, management plan, seminar planning and annual budget. The donor countries are represented by the Foreign Ministry of Norway, the Foreign Ministry of Slovenia, the SDC-Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Foreign Ministry of United Kingdom. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), as the independent accountancy authority for the project, also takes part in the Steering Committee, as well as the Stability Pact, whose Police Forum Chair leads the meeting.

For more information: www.octn.info and OCTN documents

Contacts:
OCTN Project Manager Peter Jeglic:  peter.jeglic@octn.info

PFI project and initiatives → I-24 / 7 project for the main border checking points

The Stability Pact Police Forum Initiative initiated the I-24/7 project with the aim of connecting the most frequented border crossing points with the Interpol IT system, therefore providing information to police and border police officers to help them check for stolen vehicles, stolen documents and wanted or missing persons. The Interpol IT system is a worldwide system used to support and help investigators in all member countries to combat cross border criminality.

After proposing this project at the I.C.P.O. InterpolRegional Conference in Kiev, in April 2004, the Executive Director Jean-Michel Louboutin agreed that Interpol would be the project implementer. Donor countries such as Germany, Norway, Switzerland and the United States declared their strong interest in financially supporting the I-24/7 project. The donors agreed to fund the first phase of the project, for a total amount of € 618.000. 

Since 1^st October 2006, the project manager from Interpol has been in charge of the implementation of the first phase of the project, due to last 12 months. This first phase is focused on the connection of the most important border checking points with the Interpol system and on training the police officers to use the system. The benefiting countries informed Interpol about the border checking points to be connected, the technical and equipment needs and the training needs. The second phase, to start upon receiving the funds, is to cover the less frequented border checking points and to provide the equipment needed. Interpol will prepare the project plan according to the budget needs for the second phase.

The I-24/7 main border checking point project has been essential in increasing the results in fighting stolen vehicle crime in South Eastern Europe, as it is both a trafficking region and a final destination region. Therefore, the project is connected with the Stolen Vehicle project of the Police Forum.

For more information: www.interpol.int 

For your further interest please contact:
I-24/7 Project Manager Ivanka Spadina:  ivanka.spadina@interpol.int

PFI project and initiatives → Stolen Vehicle Crime project

Stolen Vehicle Crime is a serious problem throughout Europe with annual financial damages that amount to millions of Euro, and with European citizens being directly affected through increased insurance policy prices. South Eastern Europe is not only one of the transit regions in Europe, but it is also a destination region. The EU Commission and EUROPOL aim at fighting this crime, as criminals’ methods are also partly shifting to hijacking, which contributes to decreasing the general security environment.

The Police Forum initiated the Stolen Vehicle Crime project to coordinate regional activities and to improve the national actions of police and border police. The SECI Center Bucharest plays an important role in coordinating activities within the region by leading a regional task force organising regional police checking activities against trafficking of stolen cars. In addition, the Stability Pact SPOC Secretariat works on assessing and improving specific legislation fighting stolen vehicle crime. The South East Europe Police Chief Association, SEPCA, supports the actions taken by the police services to ensure internal progress.

Annually, the Police Forum organises a regional conference, the so-called Bled conference, on stolen vehicle crime to improve national and regional capacities of the national police and border police services in fighting stolen vehicle crime. The mentioned conference has been used to present the national progress reports and to discuss and agree on further concerted actions and national activities. The countries’ participants agree to develop and implement national action plans as well as to annually report about national progresses in fighting stolen vehicle crime. The Bled conference is usually co-organised with SECI Centre regional task force meeting.

For more information: www.sepca-bg@org; www.spoc@org   

For your further interest please contact:
Police Chief Andreas Haugen, Norway: andreas.haugen@pod.politiet.no

PFI project and initiatives → SEPCA partner development project

The South East Europe Police Chief Association (SEPCA) was formed in 2002 with the support of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with the aim of enhancing cooperation and trust in the SEE region. The creation of SEPCA influenced the confidence and cooperation building in the region positively both on the police service level and on the public security level. Today, SEPCA needs to be politically supported to act as an advisor to the Ministers of Interior and to implement political decisions within the SEE region.

SEPCA and the Working Table III Police Forum created and signed a cooperation agreement in Plovdiv on June 21, 2006, with the intention to support SEPCA in strengthening its regional role in police cooperation matters and to ensure political support to its missions. The Police Forum considers SEPCA as its successor after the Stability Pact transition phase. SEPCA, using its network and capacities, is to become a regional partner for international organisations and donor countries to support their projects and to take over the Police Forum projects and initiatives. The SEPCA members agreed upon this at the Executive board meeting in Sarajevo on 14^th December 2006. They decided to create a legal working group to draft a legal status for SEPCA, with the support from Switzerland and the Police Forum Expert. In a extraordinary meeting in Sofia on 6^th of March, 2007, SEPCA member agreed the new status which will be registered in Sofia.

SEPCA will ensure coordination of training and projects, which would be profitable for international organisations as well and would also demonstrate the regional ownership of the whole initiative.

Current SEPCA President is Police Brigadier General Miodrag Simic from Serbia and the Executive Secretary is Chief Police Inspector Predrag Vujicic from the Serbian National Police Service.

Important link:www.sepca-bg.org

PFI project and initiatives → Criminal Analysis Units project

Together with Austria’s Federal Police, the Police Forum initiated the Criminal Analysis Unit project in South Eastern Europe. The project aims firstly at assessing the capacities of the region in this field and secondly at developing and creating, with the support of the national police services, specialised analysis and intelligence units. The project focuses also on installing a system to ease the process of finding officers within the police services who are able to work as analysts.

Crime analysis and intelligence units became indispensable to back up investigators in analysing data. Criminals are using devices that are increasingly technological, especially in the means of communication. Therefore, the constant collection and update of data through crime analysis and intelligence work is crucial for investigations.

On September 5, 2005 in Bucharest, the Police Forum invited the SECI Centre, SEPCA, Europol and senior experts from Austria, Norway, Sweden for a meeting where participants agreed to start the first phase of the new project, dedicated to the analysis and evaluation of the situation of police crime analysis in the SEE region. It was decided that SEPCA would lead the project and mandate the project manager. SECI Centre offered its full support and its facilities for all meetings. SEPCA mandated Mr Aurel Baloi, from the Romanian Police, to be the project manager. He created a first questionnaire to be answered by the SEE national police services. Based on the Assessment report, the implementation phase ‘second phase) will start in the autumn 2007. The Police Forum will invite interested countries to discuss the assessment and the proposed budget needed.

Important link: www.secicenter@org; www.sepca-bg.org

For your further interest please contact:
Project Manager Aurel Baloi: aurel.baloi@politiaromana.ro

PFI project and initiatives →Regional Police Training Initiative

Between 2001 and 2006 the Association of European Police Colleges (AEPC), on the initiative of the Police Forum, implemented the Regional Police Training Initiative. The overall objective of the Initiative was to introduce best practices in policing, through the exchange of knowledge and experience and to apply European standards in the field of policing. Furthermore, the programme was to initiate broad regional police cooperation and networking by brining participants from all participating countries. Countries involved in the project were Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia. Austria, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and Norway made the main donations for the seminars and the finalising process has been financed by Austria and Liechtenstein.

The Regional Police Training final report was approved by the closing conference on 23^rd October 2006 in Zagreb, where the participants also assessed the project as valuable and successful. Mrs Sandra Wijkhuijs, as the Project Manager, successfully organised weekly seminars on trafficking in drugs, police management, policing in multicultural society, trafficking in small arms and light weapons, dealing with extreme phenomena, methods of technical crime investigations, police ethics, training methods, financial crime and money laundering, smuggling stolen vehicles and forging documents.

The Regional Police Training final report gives a full overview about the 5 years of project implementation and involvement of the SEE countries.

Important link: www.aepc@org;   

For your further interest please contact:
Project Manager Sandra Wijkhuijs: sandra.wijkhuijs@politieacademie.org.nl   

Background information / History

The Police Forum was created in 2000 and since then several initiatives and projects have been launched, with some being already finished and others still under implementation 

With the intention to defeat organized crime and corruption, two main streams were formed: first the legislative track to align legislation to EU standards, building capacity of prosecutors and judges and to create networks in the justice environment; and second, the police track to create cooperation and networks and to initiate projects in training, education and capacity building for senior police officers and specialised investigators.   

The Police Forum, which follows the police track, has been respectively lead since its beginning by Mr Bern Hemingway from Germany, Mr. Sorin Sterie from Romania and, since March 2005, by Mr. Reto Brunhart from Liechtenstein.

The Chairs of the Police Forum, Mr Iver Tor Frigaard from Norway and Mr Marijo Rosic from Croatia, support the initiatives from a political point of view. Both are successors from the previous Chairs, Mr Tor Tanke Holm from Norway and Mr Zlatko Miletic from Croatia.

Documents

• Police Forum Annual meeting, October 2006 - Conclusions  
• Regional Police Training Initiative, October 2006 - Conclusions  
• OSCE's Annual Security Review Conference on 27-28 June 2006 - Speech by Pieter Verbeek, WT III Director
• Cooperation agreement letter between the Stability Pact WT III and the South Eastern Europe Police Chief Association (SEPCA)
• Meeting between the Stability Pact Police Forum, the Slovenian MoI and the SECI Center on Stolen Vehicle Crime in SEE, March 2006, Slovenia - Conclusions
• Police Forum Report , Regional Table in Prague - 15 - 16 November 2005
• Police Forum Progress Report, Regional Table in Sofia - 17-19 May 2005
• Police Forum Initiative Report, Portoroz, 7 June 2004
• Police Forum Initiative Report, Tirana, 4 December 2003
• Module Training in 2001-2002 and 2003
• Chairman's Conclusions of the Regional Conference on Stolen Vehicles, Bled, 18-19 November 2003
• Ad-Hoc meeting on the Regional Civilian Police Training in Southeast Europe, 26 May 2003
• Regional Police Training Strategy Paper, June 2002
• Chairmen's Conclusions, Fourth meeting of the Stability Pact Working Group on Regional Civilian Police Training in South Eastern Europe, Sarajevo, 29 January 2002
• Chairmen's Conclusions of the Third meeting of the Stability Pact Working Group on Regional Civilian Police Training in South Eastern Europe, Sofia, 5 September 2001
• Summary of the Police Forum Meeting, Belgrade, 7 June 2001
• Chairmen's Summary at the Second Meeting of Working Group on Regional Civilian Police Training in SEE, Belgrade 6 June 2001
• First Meeting of the Working Group on Regional Civilian Police Training in Southeast Europe
• Regional Civilian Police Training in South Eastern Europe
• Meeting on Policing and Police Cooperation in SEE, Sarajevo, 14 December 2000

For further information,

please Contact:

Regional Cooperation Council