Sarajevo, 13 December 2013 – One of the competencies of the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina is to be at service of the law enforcement in BiH in the field of improvement of international operational police cooperation.
More precisely, the Directorate is tasked with securing, implementing and developing the cooperation of the BiH law enforcement agencies with the international police organisations at global and regional level (INTERPOL, EUROPOL and SELEC), as well as with the police agencies of the same level outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Practical role of the Directorate in exchange of information at strategic and operational level and related advantages for police structure of BiH in the field of international operational police cooperation was the topic of seminar hosted on 12 December for representatives of all law enforcement agencies in BiH.
“It is of utmost importance that all concerned fully understand the role of the Directorate as police agency in charge of coordination and increase of efficiency of the international operational police cooperation,” said Samir Kavazović, Assistant Director for Sector for International Police Cooperation.
One of the objectives of the Twinning Project “Assistance to the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies” was aimed at strengthening Directorate’s capacities in the international police cooperation.
“Full understanding of the DPC role becomes even more important having in mind yesterday’s announcement from the Ministry of Security of BiH that a pre-draft operational agreement with Europol was received, and that the signing will take place soon”, said Pim Cappelle, Resident Twinning Adviser.
Close cooperation with the Ministry of Security in complying with all the requirements for the signing of the operational agreement with Europol remains on the top of Directorate's priorities.
“In parallel, we will also continue improving the level of security of information system and security of electronic data exchange as a very important element in building trust between the law enforcement agencies and Directorate. In addition, we will also focus on having in place the agreement on direct access to electronic data exchange server, which is of extreme importance for the international operational police cooperation,” added Kavazović.
The seminar also presented the experiences from Romanian, Slovenian, and Polish Police in the international police cooperation. “It was useful to listen to the EU colleagues' experiences on how did they overcome the initial obstacles in having fully functioning international police cooperation sector and how it is organised now,” concluded Kavazović.
Presentations featured specific international investigations and showed how Europol and Eurojust support the fight against organised crime with the use of their strong analyst tools and founding of Joint Investigation Teams.
The seminar was organized as part of the Twinning Project “Assistance to the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies.”