The Department of Public Security of the Ministry of the Interior and the United Nations sign a strategic memorandum to combat all forms of transnational crime
The Chief of Police-Director General of Public Security, Prefect Lamberto GIANNINI, and the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna, Undersecretary General Ghada Fathi WALY, today signed a memorandum of agreement at “Palazzo Cimarra”, seat of the Office for the coordination and planning of the Police Forces.
The signing took place in the presence of the Deputy Director General in charge of the Coordination and Planning of the Police Forces, Prefect Maria Teresa SEMPREVIVA, and the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Ambassador Ettore Francesco SEQUI as testimony of the importance that the Farnesina attaches to the work of the Department of Public Security in the international arena. The senior diplomat, in his speech, underlined how the Italian security system, an essential segment in support of the country's foreign policy, boasts a long-term commitment and unparalleled expertise in the fight against terrorism and transnational crime in every its declination: organized, serious, emerging.
On the occasion, it emerged that even this negotiating act - the result of a passionate teamwork carried out between the International Relations Service of the Coordination Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with its Roman and Viennese offices, and the United Nations - reaffirmed once again, the capabilities of the Italian system in the context of which the diplomacy-law enforcement binomial constitutes an irreplaceable monolith for the country.
The Prefect GIANNINI, as he also stated at the bilateral meeting held with the Executive Director, underlined how this Memorandum of Understanding represents an excellent opportunity to have a very useful reference framework for every collaboration activity that can systemize and further strengthen the Italian law enforcement action in synergy with UNODC and with the counterparts of the Member States.
He went on to highlight that, with today's signing, a two-way process begins to build a global security network that is even more resilient to threats, which are increasingly transnational, transversal and fluid.
The underlying reason for the search for this negotiating tool, the Chief of Police-Director General of Public Security declared, "lies in the awareness of the transnational connotation of crime: in fact we are witnessing increasingly sophisticated and fluid threats that do not have a territorial belonging and which are perpetuated and rooted in every spatial dimension. For this reason, cultural and legal tradition, strategies to combat all forms of crime, organizational capacity and adaptation to changes in regulatory and operational instruments constitute a know-how that must overcome borders by placing itself at the service of legality, security and justice. global, with the aim of strengthening the resilience of communities in the face of all organized, serious and emerging criminal and terrorist phenomena. The police forces must prove increasingly capable of adapting, with flexibility, even to sudden changes in the scenario, as is happening with the serious pandemic crisis and with climate change ”.
And ours, he added - finding full identity of views with Dr. WALY - is a law enforcement in step with the times that offers expertise and resilience in the management of every new criminal phenomenology. This is demonstrated by all the areas of specialized intervention on which, for more than thirty years, the State Police and Carabinieri have placed the focus, with dedicated assets and resources - in addition to the fundamental specialist expertise of the Guardia di Finanza. Among those mentioned: the protection of the environment and biodiversity, cybercrime and the protection of critical infrastructures, gender-based violence, human trafficking and trafficking. But also the response to the terrorist threat, devious and virulent, shared with intelligence, also through the creation of the Italian fusion center, the CASA, which also makes use of the synergies fielded by the Penitentiary Police in the de-radicalization programs of inmates.
For these reasons and with this heritage to be capitalized, Pref. GIANNINI pointed out, the main objective is to make the collaboration already in existence between the Department of Public Security and UNODC, the one responsible for the implementation of the '' public order and security and the coordination of the police forces in Italy, the other implementer of the United Nations programs against drugs and crime, for the purpose of promoting effective responses to transnational organized crime, illicit trafficking, terrorism and corruption by facilitating the legislative and operational implementation of relevant United Nations conventions.
Today's signature, he specified referring to the cooperation areas mentioned in the memorandum, allows for the consolidation of these common actions, structuring them and making them systemic, in order to prevent and fight transnational organized crime, corruption, drug / arms trafficking, trafficking in people / migrant smuggling, terrorism and other serious or emerging forms of crime.
By virtue of this, shared actions can be developed immediately that allow the development of joint projects of technical assistance and capacity building, training activities and seminars and any other activity of mutual interest.
In fact, serious and emerging organized crime and terrorism are eradicated not only with the operational and contrasting moment, which remain absolutely fundamental, but also and above all by providing know-how to each security operator through the sharing of joint, concrete programs. and pragmatic.
And, for these purposes, the Prefect GIANNINI invited the Executive Director WALY to carry out a specific mission in Italy, in order to visit the centers of excellence of the Department of Public Security and the Police Forces in order to deepen the issues of common interest. , also by preparing a sort of action plan that could constitute a concrete follow-up to the memorandum.
The Executive Director herself, visibly pleased with the invitation received, joined with pleasure by emphasizing that Italy is a partner of absolute value in the fight against all forms of crime and that, a few months after the twentieth anniversary of the Palermo Convention, defined as enthusiastic to be able to benefit, together with the Member States of the United Nations, of the high skills of the Italian police forces in preventing and combating organized crime, drug trafficking, human trafficking, smuggling of migrants, trafficking of cultural heritage, corruption, terrorism.