STA, 4 November 2019 - The Slovenian and Italian police forces will further enhance cooperation in fighting illegal migrations, as the number of joint police patrols, launched on 1 July, will be doubled from four to eight, the General Police Department told the STA on Monday.
In July a three-month trial period started in which the two countries' mixed police units patrolled the border to curb illegal migrations. The cooperation continued into October.
Since such cooperation was assessed as effective in migration management, the leaderships of border police from both countries agreed to prolong and enhance it.
It was agreed in Trieste on 24 October to double the patrols to eight, with seven patrolling the border in the area of the Koper Police Department in the south-west of Slovenia and one in the area of the Nova Gorica Police Department further north on the Slovenian-Italian border.
The two police forces also agreed to exchange information more promptly to allow for more flexible planning of joint policing of the border, the Slovenian police also said.
Border areas will be patrolled alternately on both sides of the border on the basis of a detailed analysis of the routes used by illegal migrants. The legal basis for the cooperation is the 2007 Slovenia-Italy agreement on cross-border police cooperation.
In the July-September period, over 1,900 foreigners were processed for crossing the Slovenian-Italian border illegally in the area policed by the Koper Police Department, up from almost 1,800 in the same three-month period in 2018. In the area covered by the Nova Gorica Police Department, 42 persons were processed, up from 33.
