- Mission of internal affairs have changed during war times. Exponential increases in migration, humanitarian assistance, incidents (i.e. false bomb alerts, missiles falling on the territories of the states bordering the war, etc.), transnational crimes, and hybrid threats have put and continue to place pressure on law enforcement.
- 2. Internal affairs have been responding to challenges outside traditional policing starting with Covid 19 Pandemic measures, social disruption due to economic and inflation, humanitarian due to war, and energy crisis with continuous social unrests in some European countries. These activities have come in addition to preventing and fighting crime missions, causing fatigue of staff and wear out of resources.
- 3. Energy blackmail, instrumentalization of migration, sanctions, and lawless areas caused by war represent causes, which are affecting the European continent and will exacerbate.
- 4. Large amounts of seizures in drugs, weapons and ammunition or other substances made by countries should be subject to certified laboratory testing as soon as possible in order for forensic expertise to be used as evidence in prosecuting and convicting war criminals, organised groups, and high value targets. One country does not have the capacity to create blueprints of thousands of weapons, which might be seized at border. The longer it would take, less chance are to apprehend criminals and they have more time to continue their illicit operations. Discussions should take place to understand whether a European mechanism might be put in place to divide such large seizures so several laboratories from different countries could perform the expertise in parallel.
- 5. Eastern Europe and EU need new formats and improve existing mechanisms of law enforcement cooperation adapted to current risks and threats aiming at quick share on information and knowledge, secure cross border communication networks and systems.
Conclusions
of Eastern Europe Security Belt Forum
- 6. Eastern Europe and EU need new formats and improve existing mechanisms of law enforcement cooperation adapted to current risks and threats aiming at quick share on information and knowledge, secure cross border communication networks and systems.
- 7. Internal affairs traditional organigrams and job description should be reviewed. Since there are multiple crisis format, staff can no longer work in silos and interdisciplinary interventions and mechanism should be developed as best practices and as standard operating procedures.
- 8. Our common experience with hybrid and asymmetric tactics used at governmental level to disrupt democracies by antagonising population and weakening the state’s institutions should be presented in EU and used as practical examples for the improvement of lawful toolbox and cross-border cooperation.
- 9. The countries of the Eastern security belt, Republic of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Republic of Estonia, Republic of Finland, Hungary, Republic of Latvia, Lithuania, , Republic of Moldova, Republic of Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic and Ukraine, should accentuate and raise awareness on the long-lasting effects of war at EU level, thus, calling for a paradigm shift in internal affairs policies with joint inputs and actions for and from all stakeholders regardless of their status of EU member or non-EU member.
- 10. Develop the EU support Hub as the common strategic, tactical and operational framework for fast, secure, continuous law enforcement cooperation in terms of information sharing, mutual lawful actions, bridge regional knowledge with state-of-the-art technology, remove investigation and evidence gathering barriers (i.e., language, limited capacities).
- 11. Envisage collective mechanisms (common tools, common databases, and joint recognized procedures) for identifying, collecting and sharing evidence, including digital, with already determined and tested instruments aimed at jointly coping with threats and incidents from explosion, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear attacks.
