A new European Commission study has found that only about 20% of operational authorities in the EU consider current EU-level law enforcement training sufficient, while around 170,000 law enforcement officials across the bloc still require training.
The Feasibility Study on Law Enforcement Training in the EU was published on 28 October and provides the first comprehensive overview of law enforcement training across the EU since 2013, the Commission announced in a release on Wednesday.
The study maps training across three levels — national, regional and EU — and counts around 507 national training programmes, about 104 regional programmes involving two or more EU countries, and roughly 258 programmes at EU level.
EU-level training includes instruction on common systems used for cross-border policing, such as the Schengen Information System (SIS), a large-scale database used by national authorities to share alerts.
CEPOL role highlighted
The study describes the overall training landscape as fragmented and refers to a need for stronger coordination and closer cooperation at EU level, the Commission said.
It also points to a “sustainable model” of CEPOL, the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Training, placing it at the centre of coordination within the European law enforcement training community.
The Commission also cited CEPOL’s existing cooperation with partners outside the EU, including training and knowledge-sharing with international counterparts.
