The Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, Bratislav Gašić is in Slovenia today where he will meet with the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia mag. Tatjana Bobnar. They will discuss current issues in the field of internal affairs and strengthen bilateral cooperation as well as cooperation in the region. For 14 years, the Ministries have been cooperating within the framework of the Republic of Slovenia’s international development assistance, through which Slovenia has been providing assistance to Serbia in achieving the criteria for joining the EU.
One of the more visible projects in the field of development assistance is the strengthening of patrol management efficiency, which has been running since 2019. In the framework of the project, the Slovenian police provide assistance to the Serbian police in implementing a system for more efficient and coordinated work of police officers in the field, for their faster response to people in need, and for better responsiveness to the prevention of illegal migration. The system also contributes to the greater safety of police officers on duty and the overall safety of Serbian citizens. The goal of the project is a joint and coordinated fight against organized crime, prevention of illegal migration and timely assistance to citizens.
During the migrant crisis, the need for better border control and better containment of illegal migration appeared in the border area. At the time, the Serbian police did not yet have a system in place for the efficient management of patrols. The new system is a combination of Slovenian knowledge and experience as well as modern information and communication technology compliant with European standards and designed according to the needs of Serbian police officers. For the implementation of the system, the already existing Serbian resources have been used.
After the successful pilot project (2019-2020), the second phase of the project took place in the period 2021-2022. During this time, the system was successfully implemented in 98 organizational units of the Serbian police, in 14 out of 27 police directorates and in 5 out of 6 regional border police centres.
The new system provides a better insight into which patrols are available at what time, making their work more efficient. The system, at the same time, enables analysis of past work and better planning for future work. The quality of police work is measured as the time required for police to arrive to the location and take action from the time the call to the police was made. To shorten the response time of police units and for the action to be taken as flawlessly and as correctly as possible, it is extremely important for police units to have sufficient, good, fast, and accurate information on the ground when taking action.
The project period 2021-2022 is coming to an end. The last activity took place between 23 and 25 November in Kragujevac, where the final workshops were held. In Kragujevac, 94 leading representatives of the organizational units of the Serbian police using the new patrol management system gathered. The event was also attended by Slovenian colleagues who helped in developing and implementing the system. Igor Ciperle, deputy general director of the Police of the Republic of Slovenia, participated as a distinguished guest. As a sign of gratitude for all the help and cooperation in strengthening friendly ties between two important state institutions, he received a plaque from the Directorate of the Police of the Republic of Serbia.
The event ended with a ceremonial handover of a donation of computer equipment, received by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia as part of the ‘Strengthening of Patrol Management Capacities project’, financed by the International Development Cooperation Program of the Republic of Slovenia 2021-2022.
The results of cooperation in the field of strengthening patrol management capacity have so far been extremely good. It is vital to continue with the work and include all police directorates in the system and implement activities to permanently preserve the achieved results.
The project Building capacities for management of patrols is part of the program activities of international development cooperation, financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia and implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior and the Police of the Republic of Slovenia.
The Embassy of Georgia to the Republic of Slovenia and the Centre for European Perspective invite you to join an interactive moderated discussion with Mr Nikoloz Samkharadze, Chairperson of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Parliament of Georgia, that will take place on Monday, 5 December 2022, at 12.00 at Jable Castle.
The moderated discussion will focus on the current security challenges and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations. Georgia was the first to experience Russian aggressive and bellicose policies first-hand with full-scale Russian military aggression in 2008 and remains partly under Russian occupation. As such, it is also on the frontline of the hybrid war Russia wages, dealing with the onslaught of disinformation campaigns that threaten to further destabilize the country and the region. What are the developments in the region? How will the security situation develop in Georgia, the region and Europe more broadly?
At the same time, Georgia’s commitment to European values was recognized on 23 June 2022, when the European Council took a truly historical decision by granting a European Perspective to Georgia, already a NATO aspirant country. Is the EU doing enough? What are the perspectives on EU enlargement?
Join us as we discuss this and more on 5 December 2022 at Jable Castle.
RSVP: We invite you to register your participation in the discussion via email at [email protected] until 3 December 2022.
Once again, government communicators, journalists and members of civil society from Western Balkan countries gathered to address the challenge of disinformation.
The disruptive nature of disinformation requires a whole-of-society approach and cooperation among different sectors. All too often, members of government, journalists and civil society members work separately from each other, yet striving towards the same goal, which is to protect democratic institutions and diminish the space for disinformation.
It is for this reason that CEP initiated a project ‘Strengthening societal resilience and countering foreign perpetrated disinformation in six Western Balkan countries’. In the scope of the project, a conference took place in Bled from 22 to 24 November 2022.
The conference was attended by 37 participants from Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia). All of the participants deal with the challenge of disinformation daily – whether as government communicators, fact-checkers or journalists.
The conference was divided into two parts – in the first part, several discussions with the aim of understanding disinformation, why it is done and how it impacts our societies were held. At the second part of the conference, participants started working on their ‘Country disinformation reports’, where they applied the insights gained from the first part. This is not the last conference in the scope of the project. In the next editions, the participants will continue writing reports on disinformation and expand them with sections on tools and tactics to counter and prevent disinformation, as well as sections on coordination necessary among different sectors.
The project is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia through development cooperation funds.
Part of our Peace and Security team attended the final EUPCST Conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Between 22 and 24 November representatives of 23 Consortium partners and their coordinator, Royal Netherlands Marechaussee gathered to discuss past activities, the evaluation process and to officially close the project.
After three years (2019 – 2022) EUPCST project is nearing its end. During these three years Consortium members, comprised of national gendarmeries, police forces, and civilian organisations, trained 768 training participants. Among them 537 or 70 % were male and 231 or 30% were female, 50% had a police background, 25% were gendarmes, and 25% were civilians.
The overall aim of the project was to enable civilian crisis management mission and stabilization actions staff to work in a more efficient, effective, and sustainable manner to achieve their mandates. It facilitated capacity building within different organisations active in the security sector. It also allowed for international knowledge exchange, as members of different organisations trained together, and shared their expertise at international conferences and various workshops.
In the meanwhile, we were also busy preparing evaluation forms, gathering relevant information, and sharing it with relevant stakeholders within the Consortium as well as preparing yearly evaluation reports. The final task remains to draft the final evaluation report.
We are proud we were able to successfully contribute to equipping staff of police forces, gendarmeries, and civilians with the necessary skills for their participation in international crisis management operations of the European Union, the United Nations, the African Union, and other international organisations. We hope all will be able to use this knowledge and expertise to make the world a better place.
In the scope of the European Digital Diplomacy Exchange (EDDE) project, we will organize a training for North Macedonian government communicators, which will take place in person in Skopje, North Macedonia, on 28 November and 29 November 2022.
The training, which focuses on digital communication, will enhance both the theoretical knowledge and practical skills of government communicators through several interactive sessions and workshops.
The theoretical part will focus on the digital future, policy as lifestyle, influencer marketing, digital campaign development and social media analytics. Each topic will have a practical follow-up by local representatives, who will showcase the local application of the theory and selected case studies. In the practice part, we will boost photography, videography and graphic design skills and, finally, look at different tools and approaches to identifying and fighting against disinformation.
The project is a result of the cooperation between the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy in Ljubljana and the Centre for European Perspective.
The project is partially financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia in the scope of the international development cooperation program activities.