SEESAC to Coordinate Establishment of a Regional Firearms Experts Network in the Western Balkans
Presence of illegal firearms contributes to organized crime activities and can facilitate acts of terrorism. Controlling and combating firearms trafficking, however, is particularly challenging because infrequent illicit activities achieve proportionally high impact. At the same time, frequent media coverage of incidents involving illicit firearms and a highly receptive public lead to a growing feeling of insecurity.
In order to address this issue, UNDP/SEESAC, the Regional Unit against Organized Crime in South East Europe of the French Embassy in Belgrade and the French Interior Security Attaché co-organized a regional seminar on Combating Illicit Trafficking in Firearms in South East Europe. The seminar took place in Podgorica, Montenegro on 26 – 28 November 2013.
The seminar enabled deep and unprecedented, operational as well as strategic exchanges between customs, police and justice experts from France and from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo1, Montenegro, Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It was agreed that resolving the problem of illicit trafficking in firearms in SEE requires closer cooperation at regional level.
As a result of the discussion, participants agreed on the utility of regional cooperation in combating illicit trafficking of firearms. The decision was taken to initiate a process of consultations with the relevant national authorities as a step towards establishing a regional experts network to combat illicit trafficking in firearms within which police, justice and customs services would be represented.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Europol were also represented at the seminar, while a particular role was given to the European Commission, which was called to become a partner of this initiative.
It was agreed that SEESAC will coordinate the consultation process and act as interim Secretariat. The first meeting of the Network is expected to take place in mid-2014.