The Slovenian Police hosted members of the EPCTF Support Unit in Ljubljana, yesterday, on 19 December 2007.
In addition to representatives of Slovenia, which as of the New Year will assume the EU Presidency, representatives of past (Germany and Portugal) and future Presidencies (France, Czech Republic and Sweden) and representatives of Europol and the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union also attended the meeting.
On behalf of the Director General of the Police Jože Romšek, the guests were welcomed at the General Police Directorate by the Director of the Criminal Police Directorate Aleksander Jevšek, Rajko Kozmelj, Marjan Farič and Borut Selan from the Criminal Police Administration of the General Police Directorate.
In his welcoming speech and on behalf of the General Director of the Police who will assume the Presidency of EPCTF in the upcoming half-year, Aleksander Jevšek thanked the Portugal Presidency for its excellent work, adding that the Slovenian Police was also looking forward to cooperating with the future presiding Member State France. He then presented the Programme of the Slovenian EU Presidency for the area of freedom, security and justice to the participants. He explained that Slovenia's priority tasks were primarily the establishment of the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II), reinforcement of Europol's role and operations, integration of the Prüm Convention into the acquis communautaire and introduction of European security standards in the Western Balkans. Additionally, in close cooperation with the SECI Center and Europol, Slovenia would like to make South Eastern Europe organised crime threat assessment.
The participants of the meeting which initiated official activities under the Slovenian Presidency's work group of the EPCTF discussed several key objectives of EPCTF such as the evaluation of current projects, accelerated deliberations on new technologies and their significance for police units, reinforcement of further cooperation with other agencies such as Frontex and the Customs Cooperation Working Party, and the improvement of conditions for use of joint investigation teams within the new legal framework. Not least, they also deliberated on OCTA 2008 (organised crime threat assessment for 2008) and continued legal and technical prerequisites for the interoperability of systems.
The Support Unit which operates at the premises of Europol in the Haag, Netherlands will be headed by Slovenia's representative Marjan Farič during the Slovenian EU Presidency.
