BUCHAREST, November 14th – Albania took over the chairmanship of the Joint Cooperation Committee, the highest decision body of the SECI Center, at its 29th meeting, held between 11-12th of November at Istanbul, Turkey. Perparim Dervishi, the Director General of the General Directorate of Customs, Albania is the new chairman for a one year mandate, while Mehmet Guzel, Deputy General Director of the General Directorate for Customs Enforcement, Turkey is the new vice-chairman of JCC for the same period of time.
From now on, the 13 member countries will occupy the highest positions based on a rotation procedure. The alphabetical rotation starts with the first letter of the English alphabet for the Chairperson and in reverse order for the Vice Chairperson.
The high officials, representatives of the member countries, approved the action plan for 2009, whose main targets are to develop better operational capabilities, to focus on trans-border organized crime groups by supporting joint investigations among member countries and to prepare the Organized Crime Threat Assessment for South East European Region (OCTA SEE).
At the same meeting, the Czech Republic was granted observer status to the SECI Center, thus becoming the 22nd observer of the organization.
The SECI Regional Center for Combating Trans-border Crime, headquartered in Bucharest, Romania, was launched in 2000, and is a unique operational organization in which police and customs liaison officers from 13 member states (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey) work together in direct cooperation, coordinate joint investigations and facilitate information exchange.
Besides the member countries, there are 21 observers, countries and organizations: Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Canada, EUBAM, France, Georgia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Ukraine, UNDP Romania, the United Kingdom, UNMIK, and the United States of America.
Italy and the United States maintain permanent representation at the SECI Center, and Interpol and the World Customs Organization are permanent (non-resident) advisors to the SECI Center.
