The European Union Border Assistance Mission in Libya (EUBAM) held a meeting with the Libyan Customs Maritime Department of the Tripoli Seaport, to discuss maritime cooperation.
The meeting follows up on a previous one after the evaluation of information and requests were provided to the Mission on supporting the customs maritime agency.
The Libya Border Management Unit confirmed the “interest in cooperation with Libyan customs in the maritime domain. It also affirmed that closer cooperation should be established during the next mandate of the European mission.”
The two sides agreed that EU support “will be shaped into two phases according to short, mid-and long-term needs. Regarding the short term, the availability has been confirmed to start training on operations management, board operations, and communications. As well as joint operations embedding their personnel in already planned courses.”
The maintenance of a small boat, which should allow them to perform their activities within Tripoli harbour – was also discussed.
Customs Colonel Ismail Dardour, Director of the Department, thanked EUBAM Libya’s Senior Maritime Advisor, and the Customs Adviser for the excellent cooperation between the Department and the Mission.
Last month, EUBAM expressed its commitment to providing training and capacity-building courses for Libyan customs officers.
EUBAM recently concluded a training course for customs officers on fighting the counterfeit and illicit trade of pharmaceuticals.
According to a statement issued on Friday, the Project Manager, Massimo Antonelli said that “customs are the first watchers at the border to look at the incoming counterfeits.”
The statement added that, “Libya needs to improve its enforcement capacities against counterfeit goods, to fully control the import and export of fake and dangerous products.”
“We are very committed to capacity building of the customs ”, said Luis Puig-Saenz, Head of EUBAM’s Boarder Management Unit.