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After 2 years of preparation UISP
and SCOPE have finally joined their forces. This brings together two
organisations that until then had worked separately for the welfare of
police officers in Europe. They come together in an organisation that can
speak up with a single voice to European institutions.
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Hermann Lutz during
his address to Congress |
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'This is a big day for police
officers in Europe', said a happy Hermann Lutz, former President of UISP and
now President of EuroCOP after the meeting was over. From the outset he and
the other members of the UISP presidium had worked hard to assure a broad
majority for the amalgamation of the two organisations. And finally they
succeeded. The new statutes were approved by the UISP Congress with a safe
two thirds majority.
Tough discussions had preceded the
decision. But the big goal had never been questioned. Discussions had
focused on details in the new statutes, as the nearly 50 year old UISP took
the opportunity to reform its structures in order to adapt to a changing
environment. 'EuroCOP will be open to up to one hundred organisations across
Europe in the future', explains Vice-President Gunnar Andersson, 'the old
UISP statutes were simply not made for such a big organisation.'
Already now EuroCOP organises
500.000 Police Employees across Europe through its 25 member organisations.
And the ambition to become the single voice of the police in Europe is
clear. 'If police officers cannot speak with one tongue in Europe,
politicians will not listen to us, Hermann Lutz had clearly pointed in his
opening address to Congress. 'Today we have come a large step further on our
way to this goal. Politicians will have to listen to us rather sooner than
later', he could conclude only a few hours later.
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Voting for the new
statutes |
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Only just after EuroCOP had been
created the former UISP and SCOPE delegates came together as delegates to a
first EuroCOP Congress in order to take the immediately necessary decisions
for the next year until the Ordinary Congress in September 2003.
'There is a lot of work ahead', said
newly elected member of the EuroCOP Executive Committee, Clint Elliot. 'In
the next year we will have to learn to work together effectively and to lay
the groundwork for the future of the organisation,' he continued.
Congress
took up this responsibility and charged the new Executive Committee and the
EuroCOP Committee with implementing its decision to create 5 Strategic
Working Groups that should map out the face and structure of EuroCOP during
the next 6 months.
But this all does not mean that the
organisation will only be occupied with itself in the near future. The
Roskilde Congress also assured that political work within the organisation
will continue. It charged the Executive Committee with implementing a number
of projects and issues until the Ordinary Congress in September 2003. Among
others the Project on Violence against Police Officers will be concluded
with a fourth conference in March 2003 and a final conference later that
year. As Hermann Lutz put it before leaving Roskilde: 'This decision was a
milestone for us, but right now we are facing a challenging and interesting
year up to the Ordinary Congress.
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