On 17-18 June 2014, during the 2014 OSCE-wide Annual Police Experts Meeting, criminal
justice experts from the OSCE participating States, executive structures and international
partner organizations discussed legal provisions, mechanisms and tools for enhancing crossborder co-operation between law-enforcement and judicial authorities in the OSCE area, with
the aim of enhancing the participating States’ joint responses to transnational threats. The
two-day exchange of views, experiences and examples of good practices showed that while
a solid legal foundation for international co-operation of criminal justice institutions has been
established, and a number of regional and bilateral co-ordination and co-operation
mechanisms have been created, the effective implementation of the legal provisions and the
effective and efficient utilization of co-operation mechanisms and tools often prove to be
challenging at the bilateral, regional and international levels. Participants shared their
experiences and exchanged their views on various approaches to address these challenges
and improve interagency responses to transnational criminal activities. Key findings and
outcomes of the meeting were circulated to delegations under SEC.GAL/98/14 on 23 June
2014.
On 15 August 2014, the Annual Report of the Secretary General on Police-Related Activities
in 2013 was released in accordance with 2001 Ministerial Council Decision “on police-related
activities”. The report provides a comprehensive overview of police-related programmes and
projects implemented by the OSCE executive structures during 2013. In the field of general
police development and reform, activities devoted to enhancing and consolidating community
policing/police-public partnership projects continued to be most common among the
executive structures (almost one third of all activities), particularly in South-Eastern Europe
as well as in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. Measures for enhancing police accountability,
assistance in strategic planning of police reform and initiatives addressing domestic violence
were the other three areas receiving most attention by the executive structures upon request
from the interested pS. Training development, police-media relations, border and customs
activities as well as public order management also received notable attention. With regard to
the fight against organized crime, trafficking in human beings remained the most prominent
field of work, with one-third of all project activities devoted to this topic. These projects were
particularly in the focus of the field operations in Eastern Europe.
On 8-12 September 2014, TNTD/SPMU participated in the training course “Preparing for the
2015 Serbian OSCE Chairmanship” for officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia.
The training was delivered at the Diplomatic Academy in Belgrade and organized by the
Centre for OSCE Research (CORE) of the University of Hamburg. TNTD/SPMU delivered
presentations regarding the Department’s activities.
On 17 December 2014, following an invitation to all OSCE delegations, TNTD/SPMU
presented some of its recent police-related activities as well as a number of planned
activities for 2015. Presentations focused on three main topics: cybercrime, trafficking of illicit
drugs and the draft pilot project on community policing in Ukraine. The aim of the briefing
was to update delegations on TNTD/SPMU main activities in these areas and to introduce
the draft pilot project in order to inform potential donors about it. Fifteen delegations attended
the briefing, demonstrating their interest in the matter through a number of comments and
questions. TNTD/SPMU underlined its strong commitment to continue working at the request
of participating States on cybercrime and drug-related issues and asked for the delegations’
support to its planned extrabudgetary projects.
Police Reform and Capacities Development
On 29-30 January 2014, TNTD/SPMU participated in an expert workshop on the Handbook
on Policing Public Assemblies to review the handbook that is currently being developed
jointly by TNTD/SPMU and ODIHR. The workshop brought together about 15 international
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