The USG has supported two major SEED-funded projects that pursue a regional, cooperative approach to rule of law and border reform in Southeastern Europe: the Regional Center for Combating Transborder Crime (SECI Center) located in Bucharest, Romania, and the Trade and Transport Facilitation in Southeast Europe (TTFSE) program. Both projects have had a substantial positive impact in the SECI region. Both were developed under the umbrella of SECI, the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative that was launched with U.S. support in December 1996 to facilitate regional peace and stability through cooperative activities among the countries of Southeastern Europe, and to lay the foundation for their integration into the rest of Europe. These SECI programs have provided a mechanism for the SECI participating states -- Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey and, most recently, Serbia and Montenegro – to cooperate on a regional basis to solve trans-national problems. The United States is one of 15 countries with status as a permanent observer at SECI. The United Nations Mission to Kosovo (UNMIK) is one of four international organizations with permanent observer status at the SECI Center.

The SECI Anti-Crime Center focuses on two priorities: fighting cross-border crime and the TTFSE Program, which is a cooperative program implemented through the World Bank that supports infrastructure development, customs reform, and trade facilitation in Southeastern Europe. During FY 2004, these two programs received $3.58 million in SEED funds. Of that, $2.05 million was devoted to technical assistance in support of the SECI/World Bank TTFSE program supporting customs reform and trade facilitation in Southeastern Europe, and $1.53 million was devoted to assistance for the SECI Anti-Crime Center in Bucharest.

With increasing EU assistance in Southeast Europe – particularly in accession countries – U.S. assistance to these SECI programs is changing substantially. The SECI Anti-Crime Center has become a successful, regionally-owned institution which the United States will continue to support, but which will increasingly receive donor assistance from its immediate neighbors in the European Union. The TTFSE program will fulfill its primary goals in 2005, and U.S. assistance will wind down in conjunction with increasing EU assistance in the area of regional trade and transport facilitation.

Regional Anti-Crime Programs

In FY 2004, under regional programs related to the SECI initiative, $1.53 million in FY 2003 SEED funds was devoted to activities fighting cross-border crime in Southeastern Europe.

Regional Center for Combating Transborder Crime (SECI Center): Twelve SECI states are parties to an agreement to share information to combat transborder crime, under which they established the Regional Center for Combating Transborder Crime in Bucharest, Romania, known as the SECI Center. The SECI Center functions as a regional focal point for communication and transmission of "real time" law enforcement information on cross-border crime. It is staffed by 20 liaison officers (police and customs officers) from 12 states in Southeastern Europe, working closely with law enforcement experts from most of the countries of Western Europe, Russia, Poland, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, the United States, and others. Liaison officers exchange law enforcement information related to transborder crime in the region and lead and coordinate operational task forces in the field. The Center’s four primary task forces target narcotics, commercial fraud, human trafficking, and terrorism (which consists of financial crime, small arms trafficking, and Weapons of Mass Destruction). These task forces include, experts from international organizations, supporting states, and the region. In 2004, the task forces organized numerous regional operations involving cooperation and coordination among the law enforcement agencies of the member countries. Recent operations have targeted human trafficking, narcotics smuggling, and stolen cars. Operation Mirage 2004, for example, targeted human trafficking and sought to identify and repatriate trafficked women and identify and investigate criminal groups involved in trafficking. The Operation involved 13 states and, over a one-week period in June 2004, identified 594 victims of trafficking and 545 traffickers. As a result of this Operation, 328 traffickers were charged with criminal offenses. The SECI Center’s Human Trafficking Task Force forum constitutes the most advanced regional tool for communication and joint decision-making on the strategic and operational issues related to human trafficking.

U.S. support for the SECI Center has been instrumental in facilitating cooperation among the states of Southeast Europe and in laying the foundation for their integration into the rest of Europe. In August 2004, the European Commission conducted an assessment on the functioning of the SECI Center. The formal assessment positively recognized the Center’s achievements and recommended increased EU support for the Center, leading to the objective of its eventual transformation into a Europol Regional Office. The United States supports the Center’s integration into the structures of European Union law enforcement and Justice and Home Affairs, and welcomes increased donor activity on the part of the EU.

In FY 2004, FY 2003 SEED funds totaling $580,000 were transferred to the Center to support the following assistance efforts:

• $300,000 to support a task force focusing on financial crimes such as money laundering. 
  
  
• $100,000 to support the task force on cigarette smuggling. 
  
  
• $130,000 for the Southeast European Prosecutors’ Advisory Group (SEEPAG), which brings together prosecutors from the SECI states to facilitate the prosecution of criminals in trans-border cases involving multiple states. 
  
  
• $25,000 to hire a local legal assistant to provide support to U.S. advisors located at the Center. 
  
  
• $25,000 in additional support for the Center’s Anti-Terrorism task force.
  

In 2004, the responsibility for implementation of SECI Center assistance programs was transferred from the European Affairs Bureau to the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) at the Department of State.

In FY 2004, $600,000 in SEED funds were dedicated to funding a second year for an expert to the Center from the Department of Justice Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (DOJ/OPDAT). This expert provides guidance to help the Center cement its legal protocols, develop rules of information exchange such as Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties, and implement a regional prosecutorial working group, as well a witness/victim protection program.

In addition, $350,000 in SEED funding was expended to assign at the Center a Coordinator from the State Department’s INL Bureau to oversee assistance to the SECI Center.

Trade and Transport Facilitation in Southeast Europe (TTFSE)

This program addresses the need to achieve quicker, cheaper cross-border transit of goods in the region, while also fighting smuggling and corruption at border stations. Long delays in transiting international borders are considered a serious obstacle to trade and economic development. The five key elements of this assistance effort promoting comprehensive institutional reforms are: 1) physical infrastructure improvements; 2) trade facilitation training and related activities; 3) customs information management systems; 4) customs training; and 5) anti-corruption programs.

TTFSE has been a multi-year, joint effort of the World Bank, the United States, and European counterparts. The U.S. and select European governments are providing technical assistance to participating countries to reform their customs services and facilitate trade in the region. U.S. funds are leveraged against about $80 million in World Bank loans to the region for the physical improvement of border crossing facilities in the six participating countries.

The State Department invested $2.05 million of FY 2004 SEED funds in TTFSE. The Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) received these funds to provide technical assistance to customs reform projects in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Romania, in support of the World Bank project. Border advisory teams work with host border services, customs, police, and national security agencies to address requirements of the TTFSE project. Work being performed includes developing workload, productivity, and performance indicators; creating performance monitoring systems; establishing Port Pilot sites and testing of new procedures; enhancing cooperation among border control agencies; training prosecutors and magistrates in customs laws and procedures; and assistance to develop legal and regulatory amendments to customs codes, where needed.

FY 2004 funding of this project, which covers assistance to be delivered in FY 2005, is expected to be the last year of full funding for TTFSE. The U.S. commitment to the World Bank-led project will be fulfilled in FY 2005, and activity will focus on establishing programmatic continuity and coordination with the increasing amount of assistance in the area of Trade and Transport being delivered by the EU in the Balkans.

Program Evaluation

In FY 2004, $405,000 in FY 2003 regional SEED funds were dedicated to independent evaluations of two important programs: the TTFSE program and Department of Justice--led programs in Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina to assist these countries with developing law enforcement Information Management Systems. These evaluations will assess the impact and value of U.S. assistance and will identify the best, most cost-effective way the successes achieved by these programs can be replicated in other countries or regions.