The Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Pérez, and the Director of the Cabinet of the Prefect of the Region of the Atlantic Pyrenees, Vincent Bernard-Lafoucrière, presided on Tuesday in Canfranc (Huesca) the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Police and Customs Cooperation Center (CCPA) of Canfranc-Somport-Urdos.

“The CCPAs were created to combat cross-border crime and the illicit trade in goods and today they are a key tool to improve international cooperation in the field of security and the fight against crime,” said the Secretary of State during his speech.

Pérez stressed that the Canfranc center, the first in Spain, has served on numerous occasions “as a laboratory of ideas and pilot projects” in bilateral coordination.

“The most notorious case was the launch of the SIENA platform, which allows the rapid and secure exchange of operational and strategic information between EU member states, and whose tests were initiated in 2017 in this place,” said Pérez.

The 20th anniversary commemorative event was also attended by, among other authorities, the Government delegate in Aragón, Rosa María Serrano; the Government subdelegate in Huesca, Silvia Salazar; the Mayor of Canfranc-Estacion, Fernando Sánchez; the Sub-Prefect of the French district of Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Anna Nguyen; the President of the Haut Béarn community, Bernard Uthurry; and the Mayor of Urdos, Jacques Marquez.

The Secretary of State has also praised the “operational effectiveness” and police cooperation promoted by the Canfranc CCPA, which in 2022 has made 2,071 roadblocks, 234 border controls and eight operations possible.

In the Spanish-French CCPAs as a whole, more than 40,000 information exchanges and communications were managed in the last year, which represented a 30 percent increase in activity compared to 2021.

During his speech, the Secretary of State for Security has advanced that the strengthening of police cooperation, through interoperability and the exchange of information, will be one of the five strategic axes of the Ministry of the Interior during the rotating presidency of the European Union that Spain will assume in the second half of the year.

In this regard, Rafael Pérez has advanced the commitment of the Government to co-organize the annual European conference of the Police and Customs Cooperation Centers, which will take place in the city of Santander next September.

TWENTY YEARS OF CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION

The Centre for Police and Customs Cooperation of Canfranc-Somport-Urdos was the first of the centres to be established in Spain following the Convention on Cross-Border Cooperation in Police and Customs Matters between the Kingdom of Spain and the French Republic, signed ad referendum, in Blois, on 7 July 1998.

The CCPAs were born from the transformation of the old joint police stations to adapt to the new European security space. Since its creation, they have become one of the main tools of the international police cooperation of the Ministry of the Interior, acting as centres for the permanent exchange of information and performing operational functions in support of Spanish and French police units.

The Canfranc–Somport–Urdos CCPA currently has 44 Spanish and French security forces, including 13 National Police, 12 Civil Guard and 6 Tax Agency officers.