The strengthening of the bond between the Member States, closer cooperation with NATO, the exchange of experiences and joint training are ways to ensure the effective realisation of tasks such as providing public order and security by the European Gendarmerie Force.
These where the main conclusions during the Conference of the High Level Interdepartmental Committee (Comité InterMinisteriel de haut Niveau – CIMIN) regarding the European Gendarmerie Force – EUROGENDFOR, being held from the 11th till the 12th of June in the Portuguese Faro. Key players taking part in the discussions were the Commanders/Chiefs of the different gendarmerie type organizations and representatives of the respective ministries of Interior, Foreign and Defense Affairs from France, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and Italy.
The Conference was held in cooperation with the representatives from Poland and Lithuania as partner countries and Turkey, which has the observer status. The Polish delegation was chaired by the Commander of the military gendarmerie – MG PhD Miroslaw Rozmus.
The meeting was opened by the Interior Minister of Portugal, Miguel Macedo, and was chaired by General Luis Manuel dos Santos, Newton Parreira – the CIMIN President and Commander of the Portuguese gendarmerie (Guarda Nacional Republicana).
During the Conference the representatives were informed about projects carried out over the last six months of the Portuguese presidency, among others, about the process of adoption of the Polish Military Gendarmerie to EUROGENDFOR. All the measures being taken by EUROGENDFOR, in this field, were the natural consequence of the request, during the previous CIMIN conference in Madrid (Spain), of the Polish Minister of National Defense, related to receiving the full membership status by Polish Military Gendarmerie.
It seemed to be very important to present, to the CIMIN, the results of the Evaluation Team’s work referring to further EUROGENDFOR developments and determining the conditions for a continuous improvement of the way that Permanent HQ’s executes its tasks. In the assessment that has been presented by the Evaluation Team’s head – Kevin Steeves, the most important aspects were, among others, the strengthening the bond between the Member States mentioned in the framework of the European Gendarmerie Force, but also a higher level of interoperability between EUROGENDFOR and NATO. It was also necessary to anticipate the current exchange of experience between participating forces of EUROGENDFOR and the execution of joint training and exercises, which would have a measurable impact on future deployments in actual crisis situations.
Particular attention has been paid to the need for greater involvement in peacekeeping and stability operations, including in Afghanistan, where EUROGENDFOR forces were primarily responsible for training and advising local security forces, but also in the Balkans and in other parts of the world, e.g. even in inflammatory regions in Africa. A lot of attention was paid to the analysis of risks related to the conflicts in these regions, in the context of the possibilities of support by EUROGENDFOR to the international organizations implementing stabilization operations there.
Participants of the Conference also noted the fact that Poland, though not yet having the status of full membership of the European Gendarmerie Force, actively engages in European security matters, sending its soldiers to unstable regions.
During the Conference all participants were shown, in details, the budget for the year 2013. A lot of attention was paid also to the strategy for actions to be taken to reinforce the image of the European Gendarmerie Force on the international scene.
The high potential of European Gendarmerie Force in the framework of the implementation of the European security and defense policy as well as on the opportunities available to the EGF in the area of safety and respect for the law was discussed during the Conference. At the same time, there were areas that were perceived, on which the strengthening of cooperation of the police forces with military status could bring positive results in the field of public order security and during crisis management operations.