THE HAGUE, Netherlands – INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble today officially opened the organization’s liaison office at the Europol headquarters to strengthen ongoing collaboration between the two police organizations.
The liaison office will provide additional support in communications for ongoing projects and analysis of crime and criminal data between the INTERPOL General Secretariat in Lyon, France and Europol’s base in The Hague.
During Mr Noble’s visit to The Hague, he met with Europol Director Max-Peter Ratzel to discuss the ‘roadmap’ to enhanced co-operation between the two organizations. Launched in 2005, the roadmap identifies common areas where INTERPOL and Europol can work together, such as human trafficking, terrorism and child abuse.
Mr Noble and Mr Ratzel also signed a revised joint initiative recognising the important role of Europol in the protection of the Euro and of INTERPOL in relation to other currencies.
Mr Ratzel also used the visit to express his appreciation of INTERPOL's input to the Organised Crime Threat Assessment (OCTA) 2007.
'There are many areas where INTERPOL and Europol can work effectively together for the benefit of law enforcement in our member countries and INTERPOL will continue to develop links and share information to ensure this is done as efficiently as possible,' said Mr Noble.
'Bilateral meetings between officers from our two organizations are of the highest importance and it is also essential that those in charge of the organizations meet in order to ensure that we complement each other’s work and that we have a common agreement on our strategies in the fight against international organized crime and terrorism,' said Mr. Ratzel.
To further develop awareness and benefit from each other’s expertise, an exchange programme is being implemented with five officers from each organization spending a two-week period with the partner organization each year. The first INTERPOL officer participated in the programme in June, with the first Europol officer arriving at the General Secretariat in Lyon today, Monday.