EL BLOG DE LA FIIAPP. Cooperación Española

On the general website of the General Council of Spanish Lawyers, Victoria refers to the work of Spanish lawyers in the following terms: “We are becoming better and better professionals, although many of us have had to pursue training after finishing university and we continue to do so every day”.  At FIIAPP, we wanted to learn about this reality.

What does your work consist of? How does the average citizen benefit from the work you do?

The General Council of Spanish Lawyers is the highest executive body that represents and coordinates the 83 bar associations in Spain.

Among its functions, apart from that of representing Spanish lawyers, there is a fundamental activity of regulatory organisation of the profession. Besides that, we work mostly in the area of advocacy that deals with its disciplinary part in the area of training, in relationships with the justice administration and everything having to do with legal aid. We also work to achieve more agile and effective justice, and we work on reports and studies.

Another important area of our work is in the cross-cutting international activity, where we fundamentally operate through our office in Brussels.

With respect to the office in Brussels, the work you do there is to be in contact with other European councils but also to do a bit of lobbying, isn’t that the case?

The impact Europe has is unquestionable and extraordinarily important for us, and we want to increase our work there while enhancing the possibilities for intervention.

In this international and therefore European scope, could you describe for us some of the achievements attributable to your presence there?

Yes. For example, I want to highlight the latest effort we have joined, which is the International Observatory for Lawyers in Danger (OIAD). There we have joined with lawyers’ councils in France, Italy, Germany…

It is an observatory that can have an extraordinary impact for colleagues who, for one reason or another, are in a situation of risk; we are working on this, and I believe that it will be successful and very positive.

In the area of the defence of human rights, what is your assessment of the work of the General Council of Spanish Lawyers in this area?

The very essence of law is the defence and promotion of human rights. Therefore, with the General Council of Spanish Lawyers Foundation, we have redirected this activity that we were pursuing with this group. In this, we have two scopes of action: national and international. It is one of the most respected and beloved institutions by the law profession.

The Council has collaborated in the EUROsociAL project for social cohesion in Latin America, which is managed by FIIAPP and funded by the European Union. What is an example of a success in EUROsociAL?

The tremendous work it has done for disabled Spanish prison inmates in Ecuador and for people who had completed their sentences but were still in prison. There we have worked very well and been successful.

Often times we work with great enthusiasm and idealism but the outcome is not positive. But here it has been which also serves as an inspiration for continuing our work in the future.

With respect to your appointment as chair, the first women reach this position, what is your assessment?

Let’s say that I value it as a start; the day we stop talking about this, the day it ceases to be remarkable, will be the day we have arrived at normalcy. I will say that my colleagues on the Council have given me a wristwatch with the inscription “there are no ceilings”. The day there are no ceilings, we will all have cause to celebrate.

How is the chairmanship of the Spanish Association of Foundations determined?

Any foundation can present its candidacy for the chairmanship of the Association before the General Assembly for a four-year team. In my case, I presented mine in 2012 as a representative of the Teléfonica Foundation and was re-elected in June 2015 for another four years.

What is the Spanish Association of Foundations

The Association is an organisation that any Spanish foundation can be a member of. Although not all are members, the most significant ones are. The purpose of the Association is to work for the foundation sector as a whole and to improve it.

How many foundations are members of the Association?

There are around 1000 foundations. There is a very broad representation of large and small foundations, in fact we have a different fee structure depending on the foundation’s volume of activity.

What is the role of the AEF?

As I was saying before, the purpose of the Association is to improve all aspects of the foundation sector. Professionalism is fundamental, and therefore an important part of our activity is training.

We have very well-regarded courses, prominent among which is the Specialisation Course in Foundation Management, which is going into its 13th edition this year.

Another of our objectives is to improve the regulatory framework for the sector to help it better exercise its functions. During this time we have achieved a series of things, like the approval of a tax reform measure that included improving tax incentives for donations, a milestone that the AEF had been pursuing for a long time. Now the first €150 that an individual donates qualifies for a 75% deduction on the person’s tax return. This was very important, because small donors are the fundamental base for maintaining foundations.

What does the REF do to motivate the rest of the foundations to improve?

The Association this year promoted the creation of a series of annual awards recognising the values of the foundation sector itself. In this first edition, we have tried to promote these through three modes: philanthropic initiative, collaboration and innovation.

What is the role of foundations in Europe?

In recent years, Europe has done a very good job in eliminating barriers between countries and to make us all equal in many areas. This had been possible in all areas except that of foundations, which represented a real problem, because how is it possible that a Spanish foundation that goes to Germany has to reinvent itself under the laws there?

To overcome this barrier, the Donors and Foundations Networks in Europe (DAFNE) was created, which works in the European foundation sector to eliminate these limitations. Our proposition is to unify the European regulatory framework and gain approval of a statute for European foundations that contains the same regulations for all foundations regardless of the European country where they are located.

Currently the chairmanship of DAFNE is held by the AEF’s director of international relations, Rosa Gallego.

Where did the idea of creating an association for foundations come from?

The foundation world has existed for many years, but it has grown significantly since the right to create foundations gained constitutional recognition.

The AEF was started in 2003 as a result of the fusion of the Centre for Foundations and the Spanish Confederation of Foundations. It inherited over 30 years of work and experience of the two associations that preceded it.

The 1st of October is the European Day of Foundations. Why and what does this celebrate?

This was an initiative of DAFNE aimed at dedicating one day to foundations to publicise their work in a unified way. From 15th September to 1st October, there are activities for this celebration. This year is the fourth edition, and more and more organisations are joining in.

Despite the data, the foundation sector is not very well known. In Spain, there are around 9,000 foundations that contribute to meeting the needs of citizens and which, moreover, contribute significantly to the socio-economic development of society: 200,000 jobs, €8 billion per year in spending, 23 million beneficiaries, representing nearly 1% of Spain’s GNP.

And, the AEF holds a general conference every two years. This year’s is dedicated to communication. Why communication?

Communication is very important for all sectors, but more so for ours. We have to reach our beneficiaries so that they know we exist and to achieve the necessary social support that will, moreover, lead to economic support.

Another concern of ours is transparency, and communication is a fundamental tool for working on this. For example, a few years ago the AEF changed its statutes to make the publication of accounts on the corporate website of each member mandatory. If we depend on contributions from individuals or organisations, the least we can do is be transparent about how we use those resources.

What is the role of FIIAPP, a Spanish cooperation foundation, as an AEF member?

Each foundation has its specific role, as in the case of FIIAPP, which is unquestionably a very important foundation. However, at the AEF we promote collaboration between organisations; this is more effective for fulfilling the purposes of general interest, and we do it through the creation of working groups of organisations linked by shared objectives or areas of activity.

How does the existence of the AEF and foundations benefit citizens?

Where there is a need, there is a foundation, as we say in the Association. If there were no foundations, there would be, for example, no scholarships for graduate study, because all of them are the result of donations by foundations. Nor would there be hospitals, residences, social inclusion programmes, medical and scientific research projects, many cultural activities… it would be a disaster.

Foundations have been fundamental in this crisis. Over these years, there have been more needs to cover with fewer resources, and many problems to address that the government has been unable to cover.

Working for the public interest means working for people’s dignity, which is the noblest cause one can work for. I am very proud of this sector which, although still has challenges to meet, that is what the AEF is for, to make this possible.

In my extensive experience in charge of international relations at the Ombudsman’s Office, which is also the national institution concerned with human rights under terms of the United Nations Organisation, I have been able to see the importance of cooperating in human rights first-hand, not just to merely ensure that the beneficiary countries achieve certain minimum standards of respect and protection for these rights but also to enhance the prestige of Spain abroad.

People talk of “Brand Spain” to showcase to the world the successes achieved by our athletes and companies. But we shouldn’t leave it there: over the past 40 years, Spain has been an example of respect for human rights, and we can show the world how we had an exemplary transition from a dictatorship to a democracy, where we accepted a constitution that establishes the citizen as a subject of rights and established effective mechanisms for their protection. One of the main players in this transition was an extra-judicial institution, the Ombudsman’s Office, which is responsible for ensuring that public administrations respect these rights. Moreover, it is one of the institutions of this type with the most power in the world.

Therefore, I feel especially proud of having been able to help enhance the image and prestige of my country by working in cooperation with human rights in countries of the former Soviet Union, like Kazakhstan and Armenia, and in other ones closer to us, like the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and, most recently Turkey. Through EU Twinning projects, with the invaluable help of FIIAPP, we have helped to start or have strengthened other ombudsman institutions. The importance of sister institutions collaborating wholeheartedly in the same direction, improving action procedures, learning from one another, and thus being able to better serve citizens, the only reason for our existence, is something I understand to be unimpeachable and very positive.

One of our priority objectives is, of course, Ibero-America. The expansive force of human rights has made everyone see the need to intensify collaboration with the ombudsmen in other countries, especially those in Ibero-America by holding meetings within a new organisation that took the name Ibero-American Federation of Ombudsmen (FIO). Its purpose was, and is, to lay the groundwork for fruitful international cooperation, particularly in countries that share a common culture and past. That cooperation is expressed and made concrete through the implementation of practical and effective programmes for training specialised personnel and promoting the establishment and solidity of the ombudsmen in all of the nations in the Ibero-American community.

There is work being done in areas as important as immigration, human trafficking, youth, women and prisons. Precisely this field, that of cooperation in prison matters, and ultimately, the care of Spanish prisoners abroad, is one that can benefit most from Spanish cooperation. It is necessary to make our sister countries in America see that ensuring that sentences are served under humane conditions is as important as fighting crime. This is one of the most important duties we have today.

We also work with countries in the Mediterranean region. The Arab Spring represented a threat to the incipient ombudsman institutions that were being created, but in some countries it is also turning out to be an opportunity to better adapt to international standards. Cooperation with these countries takes place through the Association of Mediterranean Ombudsmen, the purpose of which has always been to give strength and consistency to the ombudsman institutions of the Mediterranean basin, as a secure channel for affirming democracy in the area, as well as to initiate action consisting of international collaboration to cooperate within the framework of the good neighbour policy.

The ombudsman is the friendly voice that listens to us, informs us and, if possible, helps us to improve our lives and solve our problems; and, above all, it is the last hope of dozens of people whom public authorities — culpably, intentionally or accidentally — have passed over them like bulldozers.

Let’s not forget that we are all citizens, whether Spaniards or foreigners, and therefore strengthening our institutions here and there with cooperation projects means strengthening our system of freedoms.

What is South-South cooperation?

It’s the horizontal cooperation that countries in the South, in the broad sense of the word, undertake among themselves to try to resolve some of their development dilemmas with solutions applicable to their most concrete needs.

When did the trend of South-South cooperation get started?

There are various ways of approaching this. On one hand, with a more complete chronology, covering more than 50 years of history. The 1954 Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Bandung is considered the start of South-South cooperation in the broadest sense.

On the other, in the last decade and a half, let’s say from the start of this century, there has been a very significant intensification of the number of international events and South-South cooperation projects recorded on the planet. To give you an idea, in just the past five or six years there have been more international events and global conferences on South-South cooperation than in the entire previous 60 years.

South-South cooperation has a very long history, going back to that Bandung Conference, and it passed a very important milestone at the Buenos Aires Conference in 1978 with the establishment of the Buenos Aires Action Plan, which will be 40 years-old next year.

How many projects and countries has South-South cooperation moved in recent years?

The Ibero-American Secretariat General, SEGIB, based here in Madrid, which includes 22 Ibero-American countries (Spain, Portugal, Andorra and all of Latin America, from Mexico to Chile, including the Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries, i.e. Cuba and the Dominican Republic) represents the only region in the world that systematically records the South-South cooperation projects that take place.

SEGIB has been recording them for eight years in the Ibero-American South-South cooperation report. This reflects all the South-South cooperation undertaken between countries.

The latest cooperation report, published last year, recorded 580 South-South cooperation projects and more than 400 initiatives, which are smaller projects. So we’re talking about over 900 initiatives involving this type of cooperation in the region in just the past year.

In the rest of the world, it’s very difficult to map it and establish precise data. We have estimations or national reports of what China, South Africa, or Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia or Turkey, might be doing. There are also very active countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, which have a significant volume of South-South cooperation, but there are no regional records like we have in our Ibero-American region.

Which countries lead in South-South cooperation?

The six leading countries of the region are Brazil, which holds a prominent place, as well as Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Although, all Latin America countries have South-South cooperation projects, there is a strong concentration in these six countries, accounting for 90-92% of all projects.

Another interesting thing to see in these SEGIB reports is that all countries receive South-South cooperation, which is a very characteristic element and something to highlight because we’re talking about horizontal cooperation. With this type of cooperation, often one country has greater weight, more power, more resources or a higher degree of relative development in a theme, but both participating countries benefit and learn from that process. In other words, the benefit is mutual, and it’s not a donor-recipient relationship, as was traditionally established. In South-South cooperation, equality is not just an ideological position but also a reality; in practice, both countries benefit.

In addition, many countries can be very powerful but perhaps not have the same degree of relative development across the board. Therefore, many smaller countries can present opportunities for learning and benefits in areas that are very useful for other countries with a higher degree of relative development.

I think we are going to see a greater intensity in the future, even South-North cooperation, that is, countries in the South who start to provide advising, aid, cooperation and technical solutions to more developed countries.

Can you give us an example of successful South-South cooperation?

There are always some projects that are nicer and more interesting than others. Speaking of Latin American, there are three clearly-identified thematic blocks: the social area, with poverty-reduction, education, health or housing policies; the economic and agricultural development area; and lastly, the one related to the quality of institutions, governance, transparency, tax issues, and all the rest.

To give some examples of both extremes, in the social area, there is one underway in Brazil that we at SEGIB have particular affection for; it has to do with a network of 70 human milk banks in the region. In this network, women who produce more milk than they need for their own children donate this milk to children who aren’t getting enough to meet their nutritional needs, either because their mothers don’t produce enough milk or because they’re orphans.

A second example is a system of managing transplants in the Southern Cone, the region between Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. It’s a very sophisticated and highly technical system that works very well in this region.

Then there are a vast number of themes, for example, agricultural production, improving rice harvests at family farming level, and projects related to improving tax systems, the quality of public policies, training of civil servants, etc.

In other words, the breadth of projects has to do with the region’s capacities, but also with the region’s needs. The countries of the region often demand solutions that are applicable to their specific reality. That is, they don’t seek the best solution in the world, because if they did, every country would always look for cooperation from the Nordic countries, Germany, or countries that common sense tells us are much more developed.

Often we say: which are the countries that have recently developed a solution to the same problem I have but with the ability to make it successful? Sometimes one can have a fantastic solution, but later it can’t be used because it requires a great deal of resources and sophisticated technology. That famous international solution is of little use to me if it’s not applicable to my concrete reality because of my geographical characteristics, my language, my technological abilities, etc.

Very often, there are interesting cases of countries that one associates with a particular problem and, precisely because they have this problem, they have developed the ability to combat it.

How many countries have you visited whilst working on FIIAPP projects?

With FIIAPP projects, just three. I have implemented projects as a coordinator. At first, I was called a PAA, which means Pre-Accession Adviser, and later I was called an RTA, Resident Twinning Adviser. The two titles refer to the coordinator of Twinning projects in the field.

In which countries?

I started in Slovenia, from December 2002 to December 2003, with a very short but very nice project that turned out quite successfully. In fact, the results have lasted over time, as the bilateral relations with the country have continued. We could talk of the sustainability we hear so much about now.

Later, from June 2004 to June 2005, I was in Lithuania with another short but very nice project.

And lastly I was in Bulgaria, where the project had a larger scope, with a duration of two years, from June 2006 to June 2008.

What were the objectives of each of your projects?

In Slovenia and Lithuania, the projects were focused on the creation of international cooperation structures within the European Union, therefore within these two countries we worked on creating the future SIRENE (Supplementary Information Request and National Entry) office, which is a type of cooperation office that exists in each of the Schengen countries. The office works to streamline urgent police cooperation that is established in the Schengen space. Above all, we worked on the creation of the European Police (EUROPOL) office in Slovenia.

In addition, the project helped, first, to make sure that the country complied with the European standards required at that time and, second, to provide training to the police officials who were going to be assigned to the EUROPOL national offices cooperating with the rest of the countries.

In Bulgaria the project was much more technical, because it was really a matter of training the Bulgarian officials on the Schengen border control procedures. At the same time, the project helped with computerisation of the system that had been in use in the country up until then for screening people, the Schengen Information System (SIS).

How did you get interested in this type of project and in institutional cooperation?

The truth is that there is no one single motivation. In my particular case, I have had an international inclination since I was very young. I was a bit frustrated because my parents couldn’t afford trips abroad. When I was 15, 16 or 18, there was no Erasmus programme; there weren’t the possibilities that exist today.

I’ve always had that itch, and I’ve always wanted to get out there, go beyond.

And I achieved it thanks to my talent for languages and international public relations, and the fact that my family gave me its support and has always been willing to follow me on these adventures. I knew that by leaving my normal professional circle, I was going to enjoy a prestige that, at that time, wasn’t easy to attain…

How did your relationship with FIIAPP projects start?

It was a bit of a coincidence. They had proposed that I work on another European Union project in a Caribbean country that later didn’t pan out. So, at that moment, the Directorate-General of the Police was starting to work on Twinning projects, and FIIAPP was there managing the budget and providing logistical support to the work of the experts participating in these projects. Since I wasn’t going to the Caribbean project, they offered me the one in Slovenia. I found it very exciting and I don’t think it took me even five seconds to say that my bags were packed and I was on board. Even in the first meeting that we had, FIIAPP was present.

At that time, I didn’t know about FIIAPP; I knew Eva Suárez, who was the officer managing the project in Slovenia. She helped me tremendously because she was a great organizer and, for me, the face and the soul of the Foundation. Thanks to Eva, I became much closer to FIIAPP, the project with Slovenia turned out very well, I met tons of people at FIIAPP, and since then have had professional and personal relationships with many other workers.

What would you like to highlight about all these experiences in international cooperation projects?

I can’t put it into words, believe me. Personally, it has meant becoming a person with abilities, ideas and a level of development that I feel completely satisfied with. I credit a big part of my personality and my current happiness to having worked in the international cooperation.

Because it’s given me the opportunity to learn about countries, cultures, people—some good, some bad, others fair—to summarise… cooperation has made me grow as a  person.

What is clear is that I have a different perspective on problems and situations, to a great extent, I think, thanks to having been exposed to the influence of other cultural norms and ways of working. It’s very difficult to explain it. It would take a book to explain all of this.

What is your assessment of international cooperation?

The assessment is great; the thing is that it’s like a vast sea, where a small contribution from an individual can seem insignificant or of little value when taken on its own.

However, these types of international cooperation relationships, what they do is open up many roads and facilitate many tasks that come later.

And I’m going to give you an example: whilst I was at my last destination as an attaché of the Ministry of the Interior at the Spanish embassy in Romania, the European basketball championship was held in Slovenia; so I proposed to the Slovenian Minister of the Interior the idea of assisting the Spanish citizens, and those of other countries participating in the championship, who were going to come to see the matches. The idea was to establish a cooperation mechanism in which police from Spain and other countries would work with the Slovenian police to provide direct support to the security needs of the citizens arriving as tourists to watch the matches. We implemented it, and it was phenomenal to the point that the idea was used again at the European football finals in Bucharest and at the world basketball championship in France. For me, that’s an example of international cooperation. The citizens got an additional public service, paid for, moreover, by their taxes, outside of their country.

Now you’re working on getting involved in a new FIIAPP-managed project in Myanmar. Where are you with that?

Well, we’re working and negotiating. We’re going to have meetings with the beneficiaries, the Myanmar police, and with the European Union delegation to coordinate and clarify some issues that still aren’t nailed down.

My hope and dream is to be able to start the project there and for people in Myanmar to learn about the Spanish.

In this case, the project is very broad. Following the philosophy of the new democratic government now in power in the country, we are going to participate and assist in the comprehensive process of reforming the country’s administration.  In our case, we’re going to collaborate in the process of reforming the country’s police, by orienting it towards offering a public service. Because up until now, the police were directly linked to the army; it was a police force very focused on protecting the state but not on protecting citizens. It’s a question of establishing a series of democratic controls over the police and giving them training that is more oriented towards respect for human rights.

Where did the idea for the SEACOP project come from?

The idea arose in 2000, but it was in 2009 that the European Commission put together a small group of experts from the Commission itself and proposed that we travel to South America and the Caribbean to identify ways and suggest ideas on how to stop the flow of drugs from South America to Europe.

So we started with a blank slate, and our role as European experts was to come up with and offer ideas on how we could do what had not been done earlier to stop the flow of cocaine.

How were these ideas generated to implement the project?

The experience was fantastic. The leader of this group of experts was an anti-drug prosecutor from the Spanish National Court; I was the British expert; and there were also Italian and Portuguese experts in the group. Together we went to South America.

We could choose the countries, so we went to Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, and, in the Caribbean, Barbados. All of us contributed ideas based on the flaws that existed in each country’s defence systems in stopping the flow of drugs. My contribution was in the maritime part, because most drug shipments from South America to Europe go by sea, and experience and capacities for stopping it are greatly lacking, both in South America and in Europe and Africa.

Other members of the group had different ideas. The prosecutor, for example, proposed improving judicial collaboration systems. Each member proposed their own. And, as a group of experts, we offered five or six plans.

After a while, they told me that they had liked my idea and asked me if I could develop it further, thinking of starting work first in Africa and later in South America and the Caribbean.

Once my idea was developed, they sent one Portuguese, one French, one Spanish expert and I to Africa to “flesh it out” and, out of that, came SEACOP.

I had to give a presentation in Brussels on how the project should be and the four phases of SEACOP, which are: To create units in ports, create intelligence units, have better maritime information systems, and international collaboration. These are the four pillars of the project.

All of this was presented in Brussels in mid-2009. It was approved and Phase I began, in Cape Verde, Senegal and Ghana.

What has being part of Phase I and Phase II meant to you as a professional?

At the time I was still working for the National Crime Agency (NCA) and couldn’t dedicate myself to the project. For me it was fantastic to be part of the launch of the project, because I’ve spent a large part of my career working to fight maritime drug trafficking. I worked for nine years in South America and later in the United States and the Caribbean, and in recent years in Spain. A large portion of this was working with these countries to stop maritime cocaine trafficking.

How can citizens benefit from a project like SEACOP?

The most important thing is to dismantle the criminal organisations. The drug-trafficking business, like any type of organised crime, has negative effects on the population, even if they’re not always very apparent. In the case of South America, drug trafficking leads to crime. Sometimes traffickers pay people with drugs, and so there is much more addiction, in addition to the violence, massacres, disorder and institutional corruption. Therefore, the impact of cocaine trafficking on the population is enormous. As we all know, drug trafficking destroys governments and societies; its impact in South America and Central America is enormous, but consumption is also growing a great deal in Africa because of the increasing flow to this continent, and consequently to Europe.

Thus stopping the flow of cocaine and dismantling the organisations will have long-term benefits for the population.

What are the differences in this phase compared to the previous one?

The first two phases were focused on Africa, on seven countries. The third phase is focused on the Caribbean. The big difference is that we are placing more emphasis on the intelligence and international collaboration part. We have created 11 maritime intelligence groups that cover the entire Caribbean. In addition, we have provided communications systems so that the groups can exchange information.

Geoff Chalder, is the Team Leader of the third and fourth phases of SEACOP, a cooperation project to fight maritime drug trafficking, funded by the European Commission and managed by FIIAPP.