Georgia and Germany unite to fight global crime

Georgia and Germany have made a pact to support each other to fight serious global crime, including human and drug trafficking, terrorism, fraud and more.

Georgia’s Minister of Internal Affairs (MIA) Aleksandre Tchikaidze agreed to cooperate more closely with Germany when he met Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maziere. Both parties signed the "Cooperation in Combating Organized Crime, Terrorism and Other Serious Criminal Offences” agreement that aimed to improve global security and eradicate serious crime.

The German Minister was pleased the bilateral agreement was signed and stressed the importance of international cooperation.

"Freedom and security is very important for all citizens because there is no security without freedom and there is no freedom without security. At present, not any of the countries can organise safety alone and international cooperation is necessary for this. When saying safety, I mean not only fighting against crime, [but improving] security in a very broad sense,” he said.

"Our meeting aims to take the Georgian-German security cooperation to a higher level. Today’s agreement has been signed by the Ministers. It's just a signature, but we’ll start working on the implementation of this Agreement from tomorrow,” de Maiziere said.

In response Georgia's Interior Minister thanked his German counterpart and reiterated the importance of sharing German experience with Georgia’s MIA.

"[This agreement] is very important for our country, especially for our rapprochement with Europe. Germany becomes a strategic collaborator for our country not only in the fight against crime, but also in security and a variety of important aspects in which our country will definitely need to use German knowledge and practice," Chikaidze said.

The agreement foresees cooperation between Georgia and Germany in the fight against global crime, including crimes against life, body or health, terrorism, drugs, illegal trafficking of arms, human trafficking and illegal migration, crimes against property, corruption, cybercrime, producing fake money, financial crimes and more.

The agreement would also see countries work closer together and exchange crime-related information, conduct joint criminal intelligence operations, deployment of ally officers if necessary, offering expert assistance in advanced training and experience sharing, as well as sharing results of expert-criminalistics research.

This is the Georgian Minister’s first official visit to Germany.