On 7 May, the first international conference on police and customs cooperation centres was held in Moravske Toplice. The two-day meeting was attended by the representatives of police forces and interior ministries of the Western Balkan countries and of the European Union member states that been invited to attend.

The conference was co-organised by the Police Cooperation Convention for Southeast Europe at the initiative of the German federal border police, with the objective to exchange experience and good practice with other colleagues in the region on the operation of police cooperation centres. After the abolition of controls at internal Schengen borders, passenger traffic saw a further increase. Since greater mobility also enables criminals to commit crime, rapid and efficient information exchange is vitally important for effective policing in the prevention and detection of crime.

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The right response to this challenge is to establish joint centres enabling a timely provision of various data by the participating countries. The Slovenian Police can already attest to that, thanks to its effective participation in two multilateral police cooperation centres. Recently,  the trilateral police cooperation centre Vrata Megvarje/Thörl- Maglern celebrated its tenth anniversary, bringing together the work of Slovenian, Italian and Austrian police officers, while the quadrilateral law enforcement cooperation centre Dolga vas has been very successful as well, enjoying the participation of the police forces of Austria, Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia.