Between October 22 and 24, 2019, The Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights is organizing the first National Strategic Dialogue (NSD) on Illicit Trade in Romania (Bucharest). The three-days programme involves several representatives of the major national institutions engaged in the fight against illicit trade. In particular, it brings together criminal justice officials responsible for combating illicit trade, criminal investigators, intelligence analysts, prosecutors and members of the judiciary and many other national experts.
The opening ceremony commenced this morning with the opening remarks of Mr. Filippo Musca, Acting Director General of the Siracusa International Institute. Additional remarks were also given by His Excellency Marco Giungi, Ambassador of Italy to Romania, Mrs. Snejana Maleeva, Director General of the Southeast European Law Enforcement Center (SELEC), and Ms, Bianca-Georgiana Dumbrava, Personal Advisor of the Minister of Justice of Romania.
The NSD mainly aims to:
- build knowledge and awareness about illicit trade as a multi-faceted threat requiring both whole-of-Government and whole-of-society approaches;
- Highlight the importance of incorporating a robust cross-sectoral perspective in efforts to combat illicit trade at the national and international levels;
- draw on the expertise, extensive experience and insights of national leaders, policy-makers and criminal justice officials in developing a more comprehensive understanding of national strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the fight against illicit trade; and
- strengthen cooperation and collaboration between national institutions and criminal justice officials in the investigation and prosecution of illicit trade-related crimes.
The three-day initiative is organised within the framework of the Institute’s two-year research and capacity-building project, ‘Strengthening the Fight Against Illicit Trade in South Eastern Europe’ (or SEE-IMPACT), which is supported by PMI IMPACT, a global grant initiative of Philip Morris International to support projects dedicated to fighting illicit trade and related crimes.
SEE-IMPACT involves twelve countries of the Balkans area (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey). The NSD in Romania is therefore only one of the national initiatives that the Institute already organized in the in other countries of the project.
This initiative in Romania follows the first National Strategic Dialogues in the Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania (May- October 2019) and the first High-Level Regional Strategic Dialogue (RSD) on Illicit Trade in South Eastern Europe, which was held last December at the Institute’s headquarters in Siracusa. The RSD included institutional representatives from all the countries of the SEE-IMPACT project and several officials of international organizations. The event was attended, among others, by high representatives of Romanian institutions.
In the coming months, the Institute will hold the second Regional Strategic Dialogue at its headquarters in Siracusa. In that occasion, the Institute will present the final regional publication of the SEE-IMPACT project.
