Description
The questions of global threats for health of population and environment from the side of terrorist groups in using CBRN materials at the external EU border are hot topic, which must be solved by each national police of developed democracies. We decided to implement the relevant project following our experiences from investigation and documentation of environmental crimes linked to organized groups and terrorist groups, which confirm, that without effective international partnership it is not possible to achieve results. The objective of the project is to enhance the capabilities of the Presidium of the Police Force of the Slovak Republic (PPF) and the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGS) and their respective partners at the border in specific areas related to CBRN threats through exchange of experiences, best practices, and capacity building with the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) and other European and international experts and organizations. The project outputs will be focused on production of threat assesments, joint concepts, manuals and other illicit materials on the problematic areas of the border, best practices will be shared, establishing of customs and other partnerships and new cross border networks, more safety working environment for police and custom officers and consequently time cut-down for border- crossing. The project's target groups are Civil servants and Public administration staff. The Donor partner will be responsible for organization of relevant study visits to Norway within the current project. NRPA will also contribute to the threat assessment sub-project in relation to problematic areas on the Slovakian-Ukrainian border and also to organization, conduct, and evaluation of the exercise on the SK/UA border.
Summary of project results
The objective was to enhance the capabilities of the Presidium of Police Force of the SR and the State Border Guards Services of UA and their partners at the border in the areas of CBRN threats through exchange of experiences, best practices and capacity building with the DPP and other experts and organizations. Special equipment for the detection of CBRN materials and special protective equipment for the training and operation of specialized units of security forces has been purchased. An extensive education and training of police officers, the Financial Directorate of the SR officers, the judiciaries and the officers of Ukrainian security forces, the creation of strategic project documents – Joint Threat Assessment and Draft of the Joint Concept of Operation for the reaction of security forces on a CBRN incident at the SK-UA border have been funded. A joint SK-UA exercise was carried out with the participation of a DPP. There have been study visits to Iceland, Norway and France, during which cooperation with relevant state institutions was established and valuable knowledge on the procedures of the security forces in cases of CBRN materials was collected. The most significant benefits were the networking education of SK and UA relevant security forces and joint SK-UA exercises during which the participants were examined in simulated conditions of the SK-UA border in cases of dangerous radioactive and chemical material occurred. It has highlighted the urgent need to develop a standardized education system in this field. They provide basic information on hazardous CBRN materials and the correct civil or professional reaction in cases where such materials occur. Promotional materials have been developed. They are usable to wide public and the police and customs officers who are usually the first persons who come into contact with such material. The partners very specifically identified and described the national practices of the security forces in the case of the CBRN incident and drew up a proposal for a common procedure of these security forces, which could be used in practice if a CBRN incident occurred in the SK-UA border or in its vicinity with the possibility of cross-border threat. 469 members of Police Force, Customs Service, SBGS, National Police of Ukraine and prosecutors were trained at different levels of knowledge (Basic education for first responders, Enhanced education for criminal police and other units and Special education for decision makers and judiciaries). Cooperation in this area has never been at a better level.
Summary of bilateral results
Experts from DPP participated at all project activities - workshops, study visits, common exercise, final conference. During the project, a formal partnership between NRPA, the Department and the SBGS was established and as the project implementation progressed, the partnerships became stronger and stronger. Not only, that an institutional contact of all respective countries was formed, but even a stable and sustainable network of specialists in the field of CBRN security and safety of Norway, Slovakia and Ukraine was created. Through the valuable experiences all the project partners gained during the project, they were enabled to propose their plans for the future cooperation, and all the project partners will take part of a predefined project in the new programming period of EEA/Norway Grants. Experts from NRPA participated at all project activities and their contribution to the achievement of project goals was very relevant. With their rich experiences in the field of CBRN security and safety, they provided to other project partners useful advices, recommendations, ideas and support during the creation of project documents - Joint Threat Assessment and Draft of the Joint Concept of Operation for the reaction of security forces on a CBRN incident at the Slovakian-Ukrainian border. During the creation of these documents, NRPA provided to the East-european countries Slovakia and Ukraine a wider point of view, which always resulted to the improvement of proposed measures. With their rich experiences with EEA/Norway grants, NRPA provided the project partners a strong support even on an administrative level of implementation of the project. NRPA itself even organized the study visit of the representatives of project partners to Norway and allowed the project partners to deeply comprehend the model of Norwegian-Russian cross-border cooperation.