TOPCOP project holds first in-person meeting with key partners from the Eastern Partnership countries in Budapest

TOPCOP’s first long-awaited onsite meeting with partners took place between 19-21 October 2021 at the premises of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training in Budapest. This activity, that brought together 13 participants from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, was the second Network Capacity Building workshop organised within the framework of the project, which CEPOL implements in close cooperation with Europol.

The workshop was organised with the purpose of making the Eastern Partnership stakeholders acquainted with the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT), a security initiative driven by EU Member States to identify, prioritise and address threats posed by organised and serious international crime. This platform improves and strengthens co-operation between national law enforcement, including customs authorities, EU bodies and agencies and the private sector. By improving cross-border cooperation, EMPACT helps build trust between partners as they gain familiarity with each other and their specific fields of expertise. This leads to continuity in serious and organised crime fighting between countries.

Throughout the workshop, stakeholders participated in several interactive learning sessions concerning, among others, the Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA). Moreover, the TOPCOP project team briefed the stakeholders on the training activities to be implemented between 2021-2023 in and for the Eastern Partnership region.

What is TOPCOP?

TOPCOP is a project funded by the European Union that aims at creating capacity building networks and increasing the operational cooperation of law enforcement authorities among the beneficiary Eastern Partnership countries, as well the EU member states, and the EU Agencies. Read more about it on the dedicated project page.

About EMPACT

EMPACT tackles the most important threats posed by organised and serious international crime affecting the EU. It achieves this by improving and strengthening intelligence, strategic and operational cooperation between national law enforcement and customs authorities, EU bodies and agencies, the private sector as well as non-EU countries and organisations. Through EMPACT, the EU tackles common threats in a coordinated manner. See some of the results achieved by EMPACT in 2020.