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Ad hoc Meeting on New Developments on the SEE Migratory Route and Joint Response to Newly Occurring Security Challenges
Portorož, Slovenia - Between 20-22 April 2016, an Ad hoc Meeting at the level of Criminal Police Directors and Border Police Chiefs addressed the newly occurring security challenges along the SEE route, associated with the new modi operandi of predominantly foreign Organised Criminal Groups active in the region, exploiting the migratory flows to provide their increasingly diversified and extremely lucrative services described as »poly-crime«. The meeting was co-organised by the PCC SEE Secretariat under the auspices of the Moldovan Chairmanship-In-Office and the DCAF Border Security Programme. The meeting convened representatives from Albania, BiH, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Kosovo*, Switzerland, as well as partner organisations/agencies Europol, Cepol, Ni-Co, US. DoJ-ICITAP, IOM, MARRI, and the OSCE. In the respective separate panels, the border police and criminal police representatives discussed the measures taken so far and agreed on important next steps, which would also contribute to further practical complementarity in the implementation of the PCC SEE and the DCAF Border Security Programme. The border police representatives and relevant partners discussed the proposed Western Balkan Border Security initiative (WBBSi), proposed to be administered by DCAF and based on a joint, comprehensive regional action plan 2016-2020. MARRI convened a meeting at the level of border police chiefs back-to-back to the DCAF/PCC SEE event, in the framework of the MARRI-led project »Bordairpol II«, contributing in an important way to mutual complementarity.