At the initiative of the Director General of the Police, Senad Jušić, a video conference was held yesterday, 14 November 2023, with the General Police Director of the Croatian Police, Nikola Milina, and the Director General of Public Security of Italy, Vittorio Pisani.

The aim of the meeting was to agree on how to concretise the cooperation of the police forces of the three countries in tackling the problem of irregular migration along the common migration route, as agreed at the meeting of the Ministers of the Interior in Trieste (Italy) on 2 November 2023.

The police chiefs agreed to strengthen cooperation by, in the first phase, setting up mixed trilateral border patrols and improving the coordination of activities. The existing forms of cooperation between the police forces of the three countries in detecting and investigating cross-border crime should be utilised to the maximum extent possible.

They agreed to prepare a coordinated letter of intent setting out the modalities of cooperation, which will be endorsed by the Directors General at their forthcoming meeting in Trieste. This letter will serve as a framework for the necessary legal basis and for the concrete implementation of the joint activities of the three police forces in the field, in order to improve border control and the detection and prevention of irregular migration and related crimes.

In the future, as proposed by Mr Jušić, initiatives to improve cooperation along the entire Western Balkans migration route should also be considered. These include, for example, regular meetings of police chiefs of the countries in the region to improve the exchange of information and to prevent illegal migration and crime more effectively. The Croatian and Italian police chiefs supported the idea.