Video Watch an extract of Secretary General Noble's speech INTERPOL anthem played by the Orchestra of the Lithuanian Ministry of the Interior

Efficient cross-national cooperation is essential to help tackle existing and potential future challenges of crime, Lithuania's Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas told conference delegates.

Trafficking in human beings, illegal immigration, organized crime and drug trafficking are key agenda items at the conference.

See also News and Media releases   INTERPOL conference calls for increased action in tracing war crimes fugitives and child sex offenders (30/05/2008)           INTERPOL European Regional Conference opens with call for global approach to strengthen regional security (28/05/2008)         Speeches   Speech by Gediminas Kirkilas, Prime Minister of Lithuania    Speech by Regimantas Ciupaila, Lithuanian Minister of the Interior   Speech by INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble See also   Photo gallery   Previous Conferences

VILNIUS, Lithuania – INTERPOL’s 37th European Regional Conference opened today with a call for member countries to co-operate more closely with other regions in order to enhance security in Europe.

The conference, which brings together delegates from 48 countries, will focus on a range of crime areas, with human trafficking an important issue to the European region, particularly the smuggling of women from Eastern Europe. Terrorism, illegal immigration, the tracking and arrest of fugitives, organized crime and drug trafficking are also high on the agenda.

'The growing threat of organized crime and international terrorism has led countries to reinforce mutual co-operation, especially in exchanging information. Here, INTERPOL’s contribution is significant,' said Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas at the opening of the conference. 'It is for this reason that the active involvement of all countries in this organization is vitally important.'

INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble underlined the importance for Europe to look beyond its borders in order to strengthen its own regional security, underpinned by the organization’s neutrality and global police services.

'We must recognize that enhancing security in the European region often means working outside your borders. All nations are more interdependent than ever before,' said Secretary General Noble. 'INTERPOL represents the ultimate opportunity for law enforcement co-operation between nations who may disagree on a number of political issues, but who need one another to combat transnational crimes that affect citizens at the national, regional and local level.'

Secretary General Noble highlighted the fact that although the organization's members consulted INTERPOL's database on stolen and lost travel documents almost 20 million times last year, there remained over 850 million international arrivals worldwide whose passports were not screened against the global database, which contains records of more than 15 million stolen and lost travel documents.

'If we can screen the personal belongings and carry-on luggage of each and every international traveller, then we must surely screen their passports against INTERPOL's global database of stolen and lost travel documents. Indeed, if our citizens knew that we were not doing such screening and a terrorist attack or serious crime occurred, they would never forgive us,' said Secretary General Noble.

In addition, the 37th European Regional Conference seeks to strengthen international police co-operation within Europe and with the European Union with the secondment to INTERPOL of Pierre Reuland, the former Director General of the Police Grand-Ducale of Luxembourg, to explore the feasibility of opening an INTERPOL Special Representative’s office at the European Union.

'The European Union is a very important sub-region within INTERPOL; it has supported many important INTERPOL initiatives that have helped to keep European citizens safer. INTERPOL now wishes to explore institutionalizing its relationship with the EU like it has done with the UN,' concluded Secretary General Noble.

Prime Minister Kirkilas (centre) with Interior Minister Regimantas Ciupaila (right) and INTERPOL Secretary General Noble (left).	Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas (left) with INTERPOL Secretary General Noble.
Our task is to make sure that international relations and interaction between our law enforcement institutions are stronger than those of criminal networks, Lithuanian Interior Minister Regimantas Ciupaila told delegates.	Some 150 delegates from 48 countries are attending the conference.