At its two-day meeting at Brdo pri Kranju, the Governing Board of the European Police College (CEPOL) discussed and adopted the 2009 work programme and draft budget.
Besides Nevenka Tomovič, Chair of the CEPOL Governing Board, and her colleagues from the Police College, the meeting was attended by representatives of police training institutions in Member States, a representative of the Commission, a representative of Europol, and the president of the Association of European Police Colleges.
According to Nevenka Tomovič, CEPOL decided "to organise 84 courses and other forms of training for senior police officers on different topics in 2009. We will focus on cross-border crime, economic and financial crime, trafficking in human beings and drugs, and terrorism. Another important segment will be the training of educators in order to improve training at police colleges and cooperation between them."
Ulf Goeransson, Director of CEPOL, said: "Slovenia's proposal to organise a comprehensive seminar on financial crime was included in the 2009 work programme. The seminar will be designed for investigators from Member States work in this field. I very much support this proposal, as this type of cross-border crime is a serious problem in Europe."
This meeting, which is the first of two to be held during the Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council, and the eleventh CEPOL Governing Board meeting, was devoted to adopting the work programme and draft budget for next year. In 2009, CEPOL will carry out 84 training events (seminars, courses and conferences) in different areas of police work, particularly crime prevention and cross-border police cooperation in the field of organised crime and cyber crime investigation. Special attention will be dedicated to the evaluation of training and its influence on everyday policing, as well as to the introduction of common programmes into Member States’ education processes and to e-learning.
Initially CEPOL was funded from Member States' contributions; however, since 2006 it has been funded from the Community budget. The draft budget, in the amount of 8.8 million Euros, must be adopted unanimously, i.e. with 27 votes, and will be submitted to the Commission for its opinion.
Also on the agenda was the presentation of the report on the AGIS programme (the programme providing financial support to projects on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters) and the EUROMED II programme (the programme, also known as MEDA II, on international police cooperation in the Mediterranean. The CEPOL Director believes that "a great step forward was made today in the agreement with Russia and we can expect cooperation with Russian police colleges in the future."
At the second meeting of the Governing Board, which will be held in Bled in May, the adoption of the 2007 work report will be discussed.
On Slovenia’s initiative, CEPOL will organise a conference on police cooperation with the Western Balkan countries, which will take place in Bled in March.
