CROATIA—Delegates of the European Commission in Croatia and the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) presented the twinning CARDS-2004 project – the fight against the smuggling of weapons, ammunition and explosives today. 

As they pointed out at the presentation, the project consists of two parts – strengthening the ability of the Croatian MUP and other institutions in the prevention of, fight against and elimination of illegal production and trade of firearms, ammunition and explosives, as well as strengthening the institutional powers of the Ivan Lucetic crime investigation centre, with the emphasis on ballistic investigation. 

Dutch Police Agency KLPD participates as a partner in the project through the Department of International Police Cooperation (DINPOL). Other partners are the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), the Ministry of the Interior (MUP), the Police Directorate and the Ivan Vucetic crime investigation centre. The project lasts until September 2008. 

Ivan Juricic, assistant head of the crime investigation centre, says that, out of the 1.4 million euros intended for the project, 900,000 will be spent on the twinning project itself and, for 500,000 euros, they will acquire the Integrated Ballistics Idetification System (IBIS).  

The project has three goals. The first one is to create strong and clear legal foundations, efficient police methods and trained people to fight against the abuse of weapons, ammunition and explosives. The department for organized crime will mainly deal with this, explains Juricic.  

The second goal is to implement the security and supervision of quality in keeping with the EN ISO 17025 standard in all laboratories, especially those that participate in international exchange of information, such as the labs for ballistics, DNA, fingerprints, toxicology and chemistry. The third goal is to set up, i.e. install IBIS to be used in Croatia and internationally, said Juricic.  

The head of the Netherlands Ballistic Institute Kees Moehring said that they were happy to be taking  part in the project and pointed out that the cooperation was showing encouraging results so far. He assessed that his Croatian colleagues had knowledge and skills and that they would all invest every effort to achieve the desired goal – to establish the quality of the security and system supervision.   

On behalf of the European Commission (EC), which started the twinning initiative as part of the preparations for the enlargement of the European Union (EU), the launch of the project was welcomed by the Representative of the EC Delegation to Croatia Constantino Longares Barrio. He said that the project was equally important because it will increase the ability to make a record of illegal weapons, both in Croatia and in the European Union.   

The head of the Dutch Police Agency Department and the project Patricia Zorko voiced her satisfaction with her participation in the project and assessed that it would be a successful one in advancing standards in the fight against weapons smuggling.     

On behalf of MUP, Assistant Minister of the Interior Filip Dragovic voiced satisfaction with the launch of the project, while Dutch Ambassador Catharina Maria Trooster pointed to the project’s importance in curbing crime.