On discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) for the financial year 2022

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SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1. Welcomes the fact that the Court of Auditors (the ‘Court’) declared the reliability of the annual accounts of the European Union Agency of Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) for the financial year 2022 to be legal and regular in all material respects; regrets that a total amount of EUR 4.2 million was non-compliant expenditure which exceeded the materiality threshold set for the audit, therefore resulted a qualified opinion on the legality and regularity of payments by the Court;

2. Underlines that CEPOL directly reaches only a small fraction of its target population through its training activities due to relatively small size and its annual budget; encourages the Commission to conduct an evaluation study of the feasibility of merging the CEPOL with other agencies within the same remit;

3. Welcomes the fact that in 2022, CEPOL carried out 418 training activities, in which 43838 law enforcement officers participated, and successfully implemented 296 exchanges; further appreciates the Strategy Paper by the Expert Group on Fundamental Rights aiming at including the fundamental aspects in all training activities; notes with satisfaction that an ad hoc training was organised on the protection of investigative journalists in 2022; welcomes the specific training actions on topics of hate crime, spread knowledge on effective victims’ support solutions;

4. Recalls that the law enforcement training at EU level needs to reflect the EU priorities in line with Member States' training needs and to support EU’s response to serious and organised crime and other threats to internal security; welcomes the training activities in the area of counter-terrorism targeted against transnational left and right wing extremism and radicalisation; calls for more trainings on cybercrime, cyber forensics, artificial intelligence, data protection, fundamental rights and anti-racism; welcomes the training activities in the area of counter-terrorism targeted against transnational left and right wing extremism and radicalisation;

5. Further appreciates that CEPOL delivered a series of webinars responding to the war in Ukraine and a dedicated ad-hoc training needs analysis ; and that CEPOL supported the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s office in the development of an Open Source Intelligence training, as well offered extra seats to Ukrainian participants in the training activities where possible;

6. Welcomes the strong cooperation with third countries, partner EU agencies, bodies and networks in particular with Europol, Eurojust, Frontex, EJTN, European Commission, EMCDDA, EUIPO, FRA, EASO, and Interpol;