Justice and Home Affairs - Funding - OISIN II

OISIN II - European Commission

OISIN II - making EU police and customs officials more familiar with each others' systems and practices

The aim of the OISIN programme is to fight against crime in the European Union by improving cooperation between police and customs services and upgrading theirs skills. In this way, the law-enforcement authorities may gain a greater understanding of the legal systems and law enforcement practices in the various Member States of the European Union.

Expiring end of 2002. For 2003, see AGIS

On 20 December 1996, the EU Council of Ministers adopted OISIN, a common programme for theexchange,training and cooperationbetween police and customs officials of the European Union Member States. On 28 June 2001, the Council prolonged this programme, now known as OISIN II, until 31 December 2002.

What is the aim of the OISIN programme?

To provide a European Union-wide framework for exchange, training and cooperation between police and customs officials to help them become more familiar with each others' working methods and constraints, createnetworksand keep in touch.

How much OISIN co-funding is available?

EUR 8 million are available for the years 2001-02.

How does OISIN work in practice?

OISIN supportsinnovative projectsof EU-wide interest. It provides for four categories of action:

training(including language training), familiarisation with legislation and operational procedures;
exchangeof training personnel (seminars and teaching modules) and provision of operational expertise (work experience exchanges and study visits by individuals and groups);
scientific researchon subjects such as police and customs cooperation, operational feasibility studies and evaluation of OISIN projects, design, production and dissemination of training materials;
exchange ofinformationon operational issues, joint pilot operations, preparation of confidential directories, analyses of reports (Article 6).

What is the role of the European Commission in relation to OISIN?

The Commission is responsible formanaging and implementingthe programme, in cooperation with the Member States. It prepares an annual work programme comprising specific objectives and a list of priority actions.

The Commission is also responsible forevaluating and selecting projectson the basis of specific criteria such as European dimension, scope for participation by the applicant countries, complementarily with other cooperation projects and the quality of the projects in terms of their conception and presentation of expected results.

In this procedure, the Commission is assisted by acommittee, consisting of representatives of the Member States. The Commission chairs this committee and may invite representatives from the applicant countries to information meetings after the committee's meetings.