UNDCP/EU PHARE project launched aga

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Subject: UNDCP/EU PHARE project launched against drug trafficking

UNDCP/EU PHARE project launched against drug trafficking
A new joint co-operation project to combat illicit drug trafficking and
tighten border controls in south-eastern Europe has been launched last month
in Sofia (Bulgaria) by high-level European officials.

The $7.6 million project codenamed PHARE, prepared by the UN International
Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), the European Union (EU) and INTERPOL, aims
to decrease the flow of heroin, cocaine and hashish from south-eastern to
western Europe, and to cut supplies of these drugs transiting along the
so-called 'Balkan Route'. 

Two thirds of the project's budget will come from the European Union (EU),
in the frame of its PHARE programme, while the remainder is expected from
UNDCP donors. 

This project is receiving the assistance of Europol and the World Customs
Organization (WCO), and will concern the eastern European countries of
Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and
Romania. 

Project UNDCP/PHARE will give police and customs officials of these
countries advanced training in profiling and selectivity techniques, and
provide them with modern drug detection equipment as well as drug-scenting
dogs. Special measures will target large consignments of drugs hidden in sea
containers. 

Sophisticated criminal data analysis and telecommunication systems to aid
police investigations will be set up by the General Secretariat of INTERPOL.
The implementation phase will last about two years and is planned to start
during the first quarter of 1999.