Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2009.06.29

Jun

29

2nd Meeting of the Expert Working Group

The Expert Working Group is the fundamental working group of the decision making process and its decisions and actions represent the actual implementation of the Police Cooperation Convention for Southeast Europe (hereinafter: the Convention).The second official meeting of the Expert Working Group took place on 29 - 30 June 2009 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Representatives from seven Contracting Parties (The Republic of Bulgaria sent written remarks on the documents) to the Convention with a formal and legal authorization to make decisions and international partners, acting as observers, attended this meeting. DCAF and Austria were represented among the invited participants.

On 29 June the participants received knowledge and good practice examples about the decision making processes in the following: Mr. Wouter van de Rijt made a presentation on the Schengen Convention, Mr. Robert Furman on PRÜM and Mr. David Brozina on the European Union.

The formal meeting of the Expert Working Group, chaired by Mr. Samir Rizvo from Bosnia and Herzegovina, took place on 30 June. At this meeting crucial decisions and documents were adopted, which will formally be adopted at the second meeting of the Committee of Ministers on 30 September 2009 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The following documents were adopted:
•    The Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation and support regarding the Secretariat of the Convention (hereinafter: the Secretariat) including the role and tasks of the Secretariat, the cooperation between the Contracting Parties and the Secretariat, the support of the Contracting Parties to the functioning of the Secretariat as well as the organizational and operational modalities of the Secretariat;
•    The Action Plan concerning the key recommendations for the implementation of the Convention developed on the basis of the Conclusions from the Committee of Ministers on 17 July 2008 in Vienna, Austria;
•    The Rules of Procedure which represents the basis of the decision making process and
•    The Work Programme for the Secretariat for 2009 which sets out the Secretariat’s programme and the Working Group on Integrated Border Management covering the period from January 2009 to December 2009.

The Contracting Parties unanimously adopted the decision on the rotation of the PCC SEE Chairmanship. The first Chairmanship shall begin on 1 January 2010 rotating every 6 months following the alphabetical order of the names of the Contracting Parties. It was agreed that Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina have already fulfilled their Chairmanship obligation, since they had already assumed informal leadership roles in the PCC process to date.

The participants discussed:
•    The draft Work Programme for the Secretariat for 2010 which was also unanimously endorsed by the Contracting Parties:
•    The progress of the Draft PCC SEE Manual, development of which was encouraged;
•    The progress of the implementation process; the state of play regarding the setting-up of Common Centres and standardized training on Convention related matters;
•    The Committee of Ministers and 3rd Police Cooperation meeting both to be held in Bosnia and Herzegovina;

And were presented with:
•    Reports on the state of play regarding the ILECU’s project, the new developments in the area of illegal migration information exchange and risk analysis in the Western Balkan region and a report on the Common Threat Assessment on Organized Crime for South East European Region for 2008/2009;
•    The idea of a Coordination Centre for Border Police Cooperation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and
•    The Communication Strategy for the Contracting Parties.

The participants were also informed about the forthcoming 9th conference of the Brdo Process which will take place on 8 and 9 September in Slovenia.

 







Chaired by Albania from 01 July to 31 December 2024 / Next Chairmanship (1 January - 30 June 2025) by Austria