17 December 2020
 

The new project, EUROMED Police, will contribute to enhancing institutional capacity to protect EU neighbours’ citizens against transnational serious and organised crime.
 

The European Union, in collaboration with the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), launched EUROMED Police to support South Partner Countries (SPC) to fight against transnational and organised crime.

“If we are to deliver on our mission to support, develop, implement and coordinate training for law enforcement officials, it is a mission-critical responsibility to build capacity among the law enforcement community in South Partner Countries and create the necessary bridges for smooth cooperation.” highlighted CEPOL Executive Director Dr.h.c. Detlef Schröder.

“EUROMED Police will foster more cooperation between the EU and its partners in the Southern Neighbourhood region and will boost the operational effectiveness through a solid analysis of the common security threats”, said Europol’s Executive Director Catherine De Bolle. “At the centre of the EU’s security architecture, Europol is well placed to enhance the cooperated response to international crime networks menacing the EU and the region.” she added.

EUROMED Police aims at fostering dialogue and collaborative action between national law enforcement authorities in South Partner Countries – as well as between those countries, EU Member States, and EU agencies. The project will create networks of analytical and capacity-building contact points to help close any gaps between law enforcement training and operational law enforcement efforts through the identification and assessment of specific training needs.

EUROMED Police builds on fifteen years of project legacy with sustained achievements, such as the Euromed Threat Assessment (EMTA) and the development of a regional strategy –a detailed analysis of serious organised crime in the Euro-Mediterranean region. Available to the project are a set of tools that were created, which are sustainable beyond the implementation of the programme, such as the Euromed Knowledge Base –hosted on CEPOL’s online Law Enforcement Education platform (LEEd), and the Euromed Threat forum –hosted by Europol.

This project will make full use of CEPOL’s and Europol’s long standing respective expertise in assessing and delivering on law enforcement training needs, and on analysing crime data with a view to support international law enforcement cooperation in the region.

The project, for which DG NEAR has set a budget of EUR 7 million, will last four years. Activities will include a structured Operational Training Needs Assessment, joint simulation exercises, residential and online trainings on emerging needs, as well as high- level meetings bringing together representatives from law enforcement operational and training institutions.

EUROMED Police project beneficiaries are: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine^[1], with the inclusion of the international organisation such as the African Union Mechanism for Police Cooperation (AFRIPOL) and the League of Arab States.

[1] This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the Member States on this issue.

For more detailed information see: https://www.cepol.europa.eu/media/news?page=1