Launch of the PACTESUR Project – Protect Allied Cities against TErrorism in Securing Urban aReas

Financed by the European Commission, PACTESUR (Protect Allied Cities against TErrorism in Securing Urban aReas) is a 3-year project aiming to improve cities' capacity to secure their urban areas against terrorism.

It is based on 4 pillars:

1. In-depth reflection on standards, legal frames and local governance with the aim to make recommendation for a legal framework which better accommodates the cooperation of police forces and the standardization processed in security related fields (for example the use of drones or facial recognition).
    
2. Specialized training for local security operators - each of the partner cities will organize a European Week of Security (14-18 October 2019 in Nice, France, 2020 in Turin, Italy and 2021 in Liège, Belgium). This will include a 3-day training session dedicated to police forces.
   
   For the European week of Security in Nice, the police force training will be organized in the Arnaud Beltrame center. With funding by the European Commission, two new training areas are being constructed: a close-quarters battle room dedicated to specific short distance training and a training zone which mimics an urban public area including a tarmac road with urban furniture to simulate real attacks and the refurbishment of an old bus to use for the exercises.
    
3. Awareness-raising of citizens and politicians on their role in prevention of terrorist attacks and as security actors. Events will be organized during the annual European weeks of security.
    
4. Identification of the most adapted local investments for securing open and touristic public spaces by sharing field experience. Each of the three partner cities (Nice, Turin and Liège) will reflect on its approach to securing its public spaces with the involvement of students from the Sustainable Design School sustainable design school in “security by design”.  The City of Nice, forced to respond urgently after the vehicle ramming attack of 2016, gave priority to dissuasive and expensive fixed infrastructures; the City of Turin intends to design high-tech tools for the prevention of uncontrolled crowd movements, whereas the City of Liège focuses its public space securing strategy on social causes and develops an active radicalization prevention strategy.

The PACTESUR network gathers 14 cities: Nice FRANCE, Liège BELGIUM and Turin ITALY and 11 associated cities that joined the project: Athens GREECE, Edinburgh UK, Essen GERMANY, Gdansk POLAND, Leeds UK, Lisbon PORTUGAL, London UK, Madrid SPAIN, Munich GERMANY, Riga LATVIA and Xabià SPAIN.

The project will come up with publicly available reports as well as the training and information sessions organized during the European Security Weeks.

For more information: https://www.pactesur.eu/