Setting up training courses for SIRENE evaluators is a top priority on the European Council’s and Commission’s agendas: several evaluations are conducted every year in the Schengen area, in order to assess if and how Member States have integrated and apply the Schengen 'acquis'. There is indeed a need for training in order to enhance the competences of the experts and professionalize evaluation processes.
France and the Czech Republic, following preparations that lasted close to a year, have organised and delivered the first CEPOL Schengen training for evaluators acting in the field of police cooperation and SIS / SIRENE. The CEPOL Secretariat and Frontex as well as the Presidency teams of Hungary and Poland also closely contributed to the success of this key activity.
Thanks to its experience in organising training for SIRENE operators, the French Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Police (ENSP) was entrusted with this new activity which took place on 1-7 October 2011 at the ENSP near Lyon. Jean Marie Fiquet and his team coordinated the actions of all partners involved. Twenty three participants from 19 nations attended the pilot course which was moderated by two experts from the Council and five trainers.
This atypical course required a simulation of a Schengen evaluation in real size on the territory of the hosting country. Eleven French experts from the judicial police, the border police, the public security police, and the information systems and communications services played the role of 'evaluees” during the “inspections” that were conducted by the participants at central and local levels.
During this realistic simulation exercise the two groups of evaluators were able to assess the implementation of the CISA before drafting their reports in trains, metros and coaches during the trips from Lyon to Paris, to airports, police stations and the PCCC in Geneva!
The French police officers in the visited services enacted the simulation with enthusiasm, showing their professionalism and commitment to the European dimension of their daily work.
