On Friday, a five day training for the representatives of the Traffic Police of the Republic of Serbia ended in Belgrade. The training, titled "Creating a Positive Working Environment for High Quality and Professional Work", was organised by the Centre for European Perspective (CEP) in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Slovenia.

The Republic of Serbia has requested the training in the framework of Slovenia's international development cooperation and this training was the fourth activity in line of trainings and workshops CEP organized for Serbian police since 2009. After the Criminal and Border Police, high representatives of the Traffic Police took part in the training, which aims to generally enhance the motivation at daily work in order to improve the working environment and to decrease the level of corruption in the long run.

Dr Tatjana Dragović, acknowledged trainer of management and motivation from United Kingdom conducted workshops on four groups of skills of leading and understanding of strategic communication and motivation at work. Workshops were combined with practical cases by the representatives of the Slovenian Police, Branko Novak from the Police Academy, Anton Štubljar from the Novo Mesto Police Directorate, Marjan Ferk, Commander of the Traffic Police Station Maribor, Elvis A. Herbaj, Chief of Traffic Department at Celje Police Directorate and Primož Kadunc, Chief of Traffic Department at the Ljubljana Police Directorate. They focused on communication and motivation, communication skills and nonverbal communication, strategic thinking and its role in sustaining motivation on a high level, system thinking and its role for boosting ethical work and working environment, personal skills of the leader/manager, communication flow and integrity. Trainees have through workshops come to important conclusions that will be of great help in their work with the aim of creating positive working environment. They furthermore presented their views on possibilities for implementing the acquired knowledge in their daily work.

At the solemn reception at the end of the training, organised by Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia, Dragan Marković, State Secretary of Serbian Ministry of the Interior called upon all participants to implement the received knowledge in their daily work with their colleagues. He suggested organising meetings with their teams regarding the topics discussed at the seminar. Franc But, Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia in Belgrade emphasised great friendship between the two countries and support of Slovenia to Serbia on its path to enter the European Union. He acknowledged good cooperation in the economical field and also the importance of cooperation in other fields, especially as important as the law enforcement and police. Programme Director of CEP, Andreja Dolničar Jeraj thanked the Serbian colleagues for their hospitality and was also pleased that the Slovenian colleagues had the opportunity to learn a lot from their Serbian counterparts. She believes that even stronger ties are built between the two countries with this kind of trainings.

The project will be continued with upcoming activities in 2012, namely training for the general police directorate, study visits to Slovenia and other actions.