International Border Police Conference in Budapest

This week, the Hungarian capital hosted the 20th International Border Police Conference that also touched upon issues concerning the defense of the EU’s common border. The two-day event was attended by Border security guards from 42 countries.

“We concentrated on sharing experience to maintain high level of border protection in the future, too,” Hungarian Interior Minister Sándor Pintér said in his opening speech of the 20th International Border Police Conference. The two-day event in Budapest in early June was attended by Border security guards from 42 countries.

The minister reminded the participants that the first International Border Police Conference was organized in 1993 at the initiative of the Hungarian Border Guard. “We can look back on a successful period of 20 years as the conferences provided an opportunity for the negotiations of the border police leaders and contributed to the strategic cooperation between the organizations,” he said.

That event two decades ago afforded a unique opportunity for the former socialist countries on the border of the European Union and for the Member States of the Soviet Union to meet. Now, most of those countries are members of the European Union, which wishes to promote border security in the countries which lie to the east, south-east and south of it and the conference contributed significantly to this activity.

The main goal of previous conferences was to discuss border security and relating issues. “Exchange of experiences helped to fight against illegal migration, to combat cross-border terrorism activities and to tackle drug trafficking,” the Interior Minister stated.

The International Border Police Conference is just one initiative of the Hungarian Border Guard. “We have been involved in the border security development process of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia for many years.

In a context of cooperation, we are part of the international administration in Kosovo,” Sándor Pintér said, adding that based on the experience of a Hungarian expert group, which has been working in Central Asia since 2007, the model of integrated border security drawn up by Hungary became a government program in Kyrgyzstan.

(source: kormany.hu)