The Regional Meeting of Commissions for Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) was held on 22-23 June 2016 in Tirana, Albania. Albania’s Deputy Minister of Interior Mr. Stefan Çipa, Head of the Political Section of the EU Delegation (EUD) in Albania Mr. Jan Rudolph and the Head of Political Department of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) Ms. Stefana Greavu opened the meeting chaired by SEESAC Coordinator Dr. Ivan Zverzhanovski. The two-day session gathered SALW Commissions representatives and other relevant institutions from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYROM), Montenegro, Moldova, Serbia and Kosovo*.

Ms. Stefana Greavu, RCC’s Head of the Political Department told the participants that the issue of SALW  in SEE represents a significant regional concern, adding that “the large scale availability of SALW continues to pose threat to security of the region, the safety of citizens, hindering development efforts and damaging the region's efforts to become an exporter of security”.

Participants provided updates on the status of implementation of the SALW Control Strategies, the revision processes of the SALW Control strategies ongoing by several SALW Commissions as well as lessons learnt and challenges faced during these processes. A session of the meeting was dedicated to collection and legalization campaigns, with Montenegro providing detailed information about the results of the campaign and lessons learnt regarding its methodology and approaches.