# Council Decision (CFSP) 2019/2111 of 9 December 2019 in support of SEESAC disarmament and arms control activities in South-East Europe reducing the threat of illicit small arms and light weapons and their ammunition, Division 3: Project description

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

The new phase of the project will build upon the basis of the achievements under Council Decisions 2004/791/CFSP, 2010/179/CFSP, 2013/730/CFSP, (CFSP) 2016/2356 and in complementarity with the ongoing Council Decision (CFSP) 2018/1788. It will focus on three main areas, maintaining the holistic approach to tackling the threat posed by SALW in the SEE region.
The three areas address the strategic and policy level as well as the operational aspects, thus directly assisting all levels of SALW control with a focus on: strengthening regional cooperation, knowledge exchange and information‐sharing; capacity building of border police and criminal police services of the Western Balkans in countering illicit trafficking and possession of firearms; and improvement of capacities for PSSM through infrastructure security upgrades, surplus reduction and training.
In particular, the project will result in:
strengthened regional cooperation, knowledge exchange and information‐sharing on arms control;
enhanced capacities of border police and criminal police services of the Western Balkans in countering illicit trafficking and possession of firearms;
improved capacities for PSSM through infrastructure security upgrades, surplus reduction and training.
The project’s strategy is grounded in SEESAC’s unique approach of fostering confidence and cooperation in the SEE region as a prerequisite for achieving concrete and measurable transformational change. In particular, at the regional level, different cooperation processes facilitated by SEESAC, involving both policy‐makers and operational‐level practitioners, have proven to be an essential ingredient in ensuring an enabling and competitive environment for knowledge transfer, expertise exchange and information‐sharing. This has served not only to increase the capacities in the SEE region, but more importantly to build confidence and establish direct cooperation among institutions and individual experts, which, amongst other factors, enabled the development of the Roadmap. In addition, the regional cooperation approach has made the SEE region more transparent and efficient in its efforts to control the arms trade, with the result that the SEE countries are among the most transparent globally in their reporting on arms transfers. Therefore, the project will continue to foster regional cooperation as the essential enabling element for measurable results.
The project’s geographic scope is SEE, with direct project beneficiaries being the relevant authorities in Albania, BiH, Montenegro, Serbia, the Republic of Moldova, the Republic of North Macedonia and Kosovo. In addition, the project will seek to continue the support to Eastern European countries dealing with similar SALW control challenges, notably Ukraine and Belarus, through their engagement in the transfer of knowledge and experience gained and the best practices developed in the Western Balkans since 2002.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2019/2111/annex/division/3 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2019-2111/annex/division-3
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.