CT INFLOW

Project lead: CEPOL

Partners: Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, AFRIPOL, African Union, League of Arab States

Contracting Authority: European Commission’s Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI)

Project duration: 48 months. Start: 1 April 2020 - End: 31 March 2024

Social media hashtag: #CT_Inflow

The Counter-Terrorism Information Exchange and Criminal Justice Responses project

The Counter-Terrorism Information Exchange and Criminal Justice Responses (CT INFLOW) project aims at contributing to prevent and disrupt terrorist networks and the activities of recruiters to terrorism, cutting off terrorist funding, and bringing terrorists to justice, while continuing to respect human rights and international law.

Specifically, the project targets law enforcement and other relevant personnel whose tasks encompass the criminal justice process to counter terrorism, information exchange and criminal justice responses within the partner countries.

Context

According to the European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2019 (EU TE-SAT), there are significant interlinkages between the threat emanating from terrorism outside the EU and the internal security of the Union. The complexity of this threat creates massive challenges, which exceed the capacity for any national law enforcement and judicial authority to solve on their own and demand a concerted international response.

The exchange of best practices and information between the EU and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is therefore an essential part of the solution to mitigate the threat.

CEPOL has been implementing capacity building projects in the MENA region since 2015. Being the only EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) agency with a mandate to provide law enforcement training and due to its profound outreach to professional networks and law enforcement officials and experts in the EU and beyond, CEPOL is ideally placed to successfully conduct the CT INFLOW project and its objectives.

Specific objectives

Under the CT INFLOW project, CEPOL aims to achieve the following specific objectives:

Support partners to improve best practices for information exchange, cross-border investigations and prosecutions, in particular of foreign fighters and individuals suspected of planning or carrying out terrorist offences

Achieve a reinforced institutional capacity to exchange terrorism-related information, whilst maintaining a high standard of data protection, and contributing to develop criminal justice systems that can operate regionally and internationally

Components

The project is articulated into four main components:

1. Regional networks

CT INFLOW will strive towards building strategic coordination levels and networks, enhancing interlinks and strengthening ownership of project activities and their results. A high-level ownership and validation is paramount for the initiative to effectively operate and produce the expected results.

To that end, CT INFLOW will introduce the project at senior leadership level via High Level Meetings and subsequently at operational level of partner Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) via the CT INFLOW Confidence Building Workshops, thus enhancing informed decision-making during project implementation.

Additionally, the project will also lay the ground to create and develop a network for analysts specialised in counter-terrorism and a network for single points of contact (SPOC) for information exchange on counter-terrorism. These networks will promote information exchange and support a harmonised understanding of terrorism.

2. Training activities

In the framework of the CT INFLOW project, CEPOL will instigate synergies between different operational units in the auto-diagnostic process leading to training needs identification. The perfect instrument to do so is the Operational Training Needs Analysis (OTNA), which refers to the analysis of training needs of beneficiary countries in terms of thematic areas, quantity and quality.

The results of the OTNA will allow CEPOL to develop solid training priorities based on the concept of blended learning, a methodology envisioning the flanking of traditional face-to-face activities with online learning. In this context, CEPOL aims to deliver both residential activities at regional, sub-regional and national level, as well as e-learning activities.

Moreover, an exchange programme based on individual exchanges, study visits and a mentoring programme will encourage the sharing of good practices and expertise among the law enforcement community of the beneficiary countries.

3. Criminal justice response

CEPOL is not a dedicated judicial training actor and possesses limited experience in the context of the MENA region. Thus, the agency plans to implement the criminal justice responses component via a specialised entity, contracted through a grant or a service contract.

The activities under this component will focus on:

Regional and international conventions in counter-terrorism
Bilateral and regional agreements
National and regional dynamics - good practices in inter-service cooperation
The role of fundamental rights in pre-trial and trial phases

4. MENA Terrorism Situation and Trends Report (TE-SAT) and technical supply

In the EU, Europol provides annual strategic assessments of terrorism trends contributing to the operational cooperation between member states on security matters. Other regional organisations and entities, such as the League of Arab States and African Union have recently become involved in setting up cooperative frameworks among its member states and manifested interest to deepen cooperation with the EU in this field.

Beyond the activities related to the MENA TE-SAT report, in order to ensure successful and effective cooperation, a technical supply action will be carried out in order to enable the creation of an information exchange system built on high-end, large scale, interoperable IT systems.

While CEPOL’s mandate will not allow it to directly facilitate such activities, the agency will support this objective by outsourcing all or parts of it to an appropriate specialised entity via a service contract.