Coordinating the fight against crime through a security committee

EL PAcCTO proposes the creation of a Latin America Internal Security Committee (CLASI) based on the EU experience with COSI (Standing Committee on Operational Cooperation on Internal Security), created by the European Union (EU) in 2010.

To present the initiative, EL PAcCTO, which is an EU funded project, brought together over 70 participants from eleven countries in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay together with EU institutions.

The opening session was attended by Anna Terrón, FIIAPP director, Laurent Muschel, director of law enforcement and security at the European Commission Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (HOME), Raoul Ueberecken, director for Home Affairs at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, Árpád Csekő, a policy officer with the External Action Service, SEAE, Jorge de la Caballería, acting director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the European Commission Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO) and Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Spain’s minister of the interior.

All those present highlighted the enormous progress that the creation of CLASI would entail for cooperation and coordination against organised crime in Latin America and in terms of the dialogue between the two regions.

With respect to EL PAcCTO, FIIAPP’s director, Anna Terrón, said that “this programme focuses not only on security aspects, but also on justice and on penitentiary institutions, so it aims to respond to challenges along the entire criminal justice chain”.

On the Latin American side, the opening session was attended by, among others, representatives from Interior, Security and Government ministries, Chile’s minister of the interior and Mexico’s under-secretary for public security and citizen protection.

CLASI is the most strategic initiative promoted by EL PAcCTO, a project managed by FIIAPP and Expertise France with the support of IILA and Camões. It is believed that, with the creation of CLASI, a decisive change would be come about in the approach to organised crime in Latin America and how to fight effectively against its various manifestations. It would also facilitate dialogue between high-level stakeholders in Latin America and the European Union on security issues and on dealing with joint threats.