V MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE ON BORDER SECURITY IN THE SE EUROPE - SPEECH OF THE MINISTER OF INTERIOR AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION OF MONTENEGRO

Published date: 23.02.2008 16:12 | Author: MINISTARSKA KONFERENCIJA

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M o n te n e g r o

Ministry of Interior and Public Administration


V MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE ON BORDER SECURITY
IN THE SE EUROPE
Budva, 21-23 February, 2008


SPEECH OF THE MINISTER OF INTERIOR AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION OF MONTENEGRO


Dear Mr.Chairman,
Dear Fellow Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,


It is my great honor and pleasure being able to greet you in such a number in Montenegro.

I would not like to repeat the facts which are well known to all of us here, regarding the importance of the border security for overall Regional security – let me deal in my presentation with what Montenegro and all of us together, since the last year Conference in Dubrovnik, have done, within the field of border security.

Montenegro have recently ratified Vienna Convention on Police Cooperation, but also done several concrete steps aiming promoting of the trans-border cooperation within the Region. We have signed the Agreement with the Government of the Republic of Albania and soon we are going to build "Muricani-Sukobin", the first joint border crossing within the Region We have also signed the Agreement with the Government of the Republic of Albania on Trans-Border Police Cooperation. We also sent initiatives for opening of joint border crossings to the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the Government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from whom we received , in principle positive responses.

Ministry of Interior and Public Administration is very grateful to DECAF for the assistance offered within the frame of the Program for border security. Our Border Police officers have passed through many trainings, that improved our professional capacities, and through regional expert networks we have additionally improved mutual trust and proposed set of measures and documents, which, I am convinced, shall contribute to better border security within the Region.

All countries from our Region have adopted Strategies for Integral Border management, that is a great success, but I hope that we will do even a step forward and that all of our Border Services shall develop a Joint Master Plans for establishing of the joint border crossings, in accordance with the Joint Declaration which we will sign today.

I also think that it is possible to adopt the joint work procedures and rules and regulations resulting from Schengen requirements, that is one of aims of the Convention on Police Cooperation.

Considering such a big presence of the representatives of EU and International Community, I would like to take this opportunity in order to invite them to help us in establishing of the joint Institutions which will deal with education and training of our Border Services.

In my opinion it is necessary to do much more within the field of data exchange and especially within the field of risk analysis.

The challange which authorities of our Border Police face with is to provide security for citizens with one more already equally important task of preserving of our cultural diversities, without resorting to lines of separation aiming achieving of the ideal of so called smart borders, which shall be the insurmountable obstacle for criminals and simple and effective check point for wellintentioned passengers and goods.

Although significiant steps in satisfying requests of our citizens for offering of security, have been done, the need for important improvement of administrative capacities and capabilities in the implementation of the concept of integral border management is still present.

But, even when we have all such elements in function, it is necessary to consider the fact that development is never definitively completed. It is necessary that we continue evaluate and estimate the system subject to our selection, in order to be able to adopt us to the new situations.



I hope that on the Ministerial Conference in Belgrade, 2009 we shall be able to express our stisfaction about achieved progress within the field of border security and that we shall be even more decisive in achieving of goals established by us.

I would like to thank again to the Ambassador Winkler and DCAF for the assistance lasting for already more than six years, likewise to the Governments of Countries participants in this Program.

Our special gratitude to the great Friend of our Region – Western Balkans, Mr.Franco Frattini, Vice President of the European Comission, owning to his support this Region became much closer to Europe to which all of us, not only geographically but authentically belong.

Thank you for your kind attention.