EU: Police Academy on the way?
01 January 2001
EU member states have agreed on the creation of a European Police College (CEPOL). The college will initially be established as a network of existing national institutes with the prospect of a permanent institution being set-up in three years time. Agreement on CEPOL is another so-called "Tampere milestone" (after the EU summit in October 1999 that set numerous policy objectives).
An "Association of European Police Colleges" in which all member states participate had already been created in 1996, but without legal personality or EU funding. Its formal replacement is mandated with providing: "training sessions, based on common standards, for senior police"; specialist training in combating cross-border crime; training for national trainers; "training for police authorities from the accession candidate states"; to "disseminate best practise and research"; contribute toward "harmonised programmes for the training of middle ranking police-officers"; and facilitate the necessary exchanges and secondments. It is also to develop and provide training to "prepare police forces of the EU for participation in non-military crisis management" operations outside of the union (see Statewatch vol 10 no 3/4).
A Board comprised of the directors of the EU national police training institutes will oversee CEPOL, deciding unanimously on the specific activities and annual programme of the college. Its first meeting was held in February under the Swedish Presidency. Representatives of Europol, the Council General Secretariat and the Commission attend the meetings (but can not vote). The college shall consider "on a case-by-case basis the possibility of admitting officials of the European Institutions and other EU bodies" - such as Europol, Eurojust and the European Commission's Financial Action Task Force - for training.
Funding for CEPOL will come directly from the member states and indirectly from the Community budget. The CEPOL board is to submit a budget for approval to the Council with the member states providing the money in proportion to their GNP. The management board can then apply for funding for specific projects from the EC's law enforcement cooperation budget lines ("Falcone", "Oisin", "Stop" and "Odysseus").
An annual report on CEPOL's activities will be sent to the Council, Commission and EP and in three years a report on the "operation and future" of the college will be submitted.
Article 8 of the Council Decision establishing CEPOL allows the college to cooperate with the national police training institutes of third states ("in particular Norway, Iceland and the applicant States"). However, the EU is lagging far behind the US in providing training for central and eastern European police officers. In 1995 the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Budapest was set up by the main American law enforcement agencies (FBI, DEA, Secret Service, IRS, etc.). An internal EU foreign policy document of May 2000 shows Brussels officials' frustration that the member states were "slow to react" when the USA and Hungary created ILEA:
Owing to inertia or a lack of political will, not only was the Union unable to prevent the school being set up, it was no more capable of ensuring that at the very least the school would be set up according to European standards - this in spite of repeated requests by the American partner to join in the project in the context of the Transatlantic partnership.
CEPOL is also to cooperate with "relevant training bodies in Europe, such as the Nordic Baltic Police Academy (NBPA) and the Central European Police Academy (MEPA)". The NBPA involves the Scandinavian and Balkan countries, MEPA is a "virtual institution" comprising Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. There is no mention in the CEPOL Decision of cooperation with ILEA. The US have recently set up another ILEA in Bangkok, Thailand.
The college network will have its own permanent secreta