CEPOL recently started official negotiations with Albania to evaluate the options for possible future cooperation.
On a visit to Albania on 7-8 July 2010, CEPOL’s Head of Programmes, Detlef Schröder, and Project Officer, Elisabeth Zinschitz, met with the Director of the Albanian State Police, Deputy General Director of Albanian State Police, Director of the Police Training Centre, the Head of International Technical Police Cooperation and the Training Advisor from PAMECA III.
From the meetings, it was apparent that Albania is interested in bringing their training closer to European standards. They expressed a strong wish to utilise CEPOL’s Common Curricula.
Currently in Albania, police training is the responsibility of the Police Training Directorate, one of five Directorates under the General Directorate of State Police. The focus is mainly on basic training, and at present they are re-training 9,000 serving police officers in line with a new law issued in 2007. Apart from their regular training for new recruits, training is centralised in Tirana; only in-service training is done in the regional police forces. There is also education for mid-level management, however none for senior police officers.
Detlef Schröder said: “During our visit, we issued an invitation to the European Neighbourhood Policy conference which takes place in Rome in December. The next step is to discuss the possibility with the External Relations Working Group and Strategy Committee about making CEPOL’s Common Curricula available to Albania and other countries.”
