Republic of Serbia should sign Memorandum of Understanding with Europol. Head of Bureau for International cooperation and European Integrations from Ministry of Internal of the Republic of Serbia Dražen Maravić said that Ministry of Internal of the Republic of Serbia is in regular contact as directly so through bilateral relations that we have with member states of the EU and Europol.
– Recently, a larger delegation of the Ministry of Internal of the Republic of Serbia visited Europol. On that occasion we talked about modalities of future cooperation, as well as about indispensable formal steps that should be undertaken. We expect, according to our agreement we made with the representatives of the Europol, that a proposal of Strategic Understanding will be delivered to us by the end of September, and soon after to be signed – said Maravić for “Dnevnik”.
According to his words, the strategic understanding with the Europol will enable different forms of cooperation, such as exchange of information regarding trends in criminal activities, methods in work in organized criminal groups, different evaluations of threats and security challenges, as well as conduction of different forms of trainings. For example, it will be possible to make an evaluation on threats in cases of organizing a larger international meeting in Belgrade, such as Universiada or other similar sport or political events.
– To sign the strategic and operative cooperation with Europol will bring multilevel benefits. It will contribute to the more efficient and wider cooperation with police services in member states of the Europol, and will also enable constant transfer of modern knowledge and practical experiences of their experts in our police.
Europol developed criminality-intelligence approach in combating especially organized crime, as well as a development of regular assessments of terrorism threats, organized and other forms of crime. By establishing this cooperation we will not only improve safety of our citizens, but we’ll also contribute to the totality of European integration process of the Republic of Serbia – says Head of Bureau for International cooperation and European Integrations from Ministry of Internal of the Republic of Serbia.
Europol represents specialized police structure of the European Union, which deals firstly with criminal-intelligence work. Basic task of the Europol is to strengthen efficiency in cooperation and to support authorities in member states in cooperation in combating organized crime and terrorism.
– The establishment of Europol is agreed in Maastricht in 1992 with the Contract of European Union. Head office is in The Hague, the Netherlands, and it begun its work in certain fields, before all in suppression of narcotics, in 1994. Since January 1st 2002 mandate of the Europol is expanded to other forms of international criminal – says Dražen Maravić
It is important to stress out that this segment of integrations is more and more important, says Maravić. That is why the success in a domain of police and in total security cooperation between our agencies and European integrations is very important, maybe even crucial for a rapid entering of the Republic of Serbia to the EU. Also, in the next period, strengthening our cooperation with the Europol represents significant and important step to fulfilling criteria for bringing Serbia to so called “white Schengen list”.
– Any way, priorities in cooperation with the Europol will be related to cooperation in a domain of suppressing illegal drug traffic, illegal migrations, terrorism, forgery, human trafficking, stealing of automobiles and money laundry. There is a strong mutual interest for rapid establishment of cooperation, which is testified by previous activities of the Europol – points out Maravić.
Namely, according to his words, one of the most significant parts of the work of Europol is opening of so called analytic working files, which represent legal frame – needed for gathering personal data on suspects in criminal activities. Those data are gathered in intelligence activities of national services of member states in Europol. The point of those analytic files is to support combat against the most dangerous organized criminal groups, through the analytic work. Currently, in the Europol 16 such files are opened, where from 4 are in relation to the organized criminal groups. In this sense, acting of the Albanian organized criminal groups is in focus of the Europol attention.
