of the interests of the other participants. The Federal Ministry of the Interior confirmed that it is important to make a strict separation between the roles of human rights observer and return counsellor. However, with respect to the possibility of a dual role of return counsellor and interpreter, the Federal Ministry of the Interior expressed the opinion that a relationship of trust is often established during return counselling, which can then have a positive effect on interpreting. For this reason, the Federal Ministry of the Interior is glad to have bilingual employees of organisations hired to prepare persons for their return participate in contact meetings. The NPM does not dispute that there is a positive effect when a return counsellor speaks the native language of the person being deported. Nevertheless, a bilingual return counsellor cannot replace a professional interpreter. It is still an open question whether other NGOs are interested in the project and, if so, which NGOs may serve as human rights observers in the future.   Repatriation counsellors cannot replace professional interpreters. Repatriation counselling and interpreting services must be provided by different persons. 2.7.2.3 Informing the commissions of police operations – new decree of the Federal Ministry of the Interior In the NPM Report 2013, the NPM complained that the commissions were often informed of police operations at a very late stage or not at all. For this reason, the NPM reached an agreement with the Federal Ministry of the Interior that the decree governing the prerequisites for whether and when the commissions will be informed of police operations (“Notification Decree”) will be revised. In a working group in early summer 2014, the NPM and the Federal Ministry of the Interior agreed on a new version of the so-called “Notification Decree”. It redefines important terms, such as “targeted campaign”, “major event” and “assembly” and, in particular, no longer relies on the arrest forecast as to the anticipated dimensions of a police operation. The intent was to reach a balance so that the commissions would be informed of all operations with potential impacts on human rights but would not be “flooded” with information about operations. So far, the commissions have had little criticism of the handling of the new regulation. Of course, even with the best intentions on the part of all participants, it cannot be ruled out that, in practice, the NPM will be notified of a police operation at too late a stage. For example, a commission complained that a contact meeting at the Zinnergasse family shelter was scheduled for 4 p.m. When the commission arrived 141 Working group of the NPM and the Federal Ministry of the Interior