Police Cooperation Center

A Police Cooperation Center ( PKZ for short ) is a facility of the Austrian Federal Police for better cross-border cooperation with the police and gendarmerie units of the states bordering Austria.

Organization and tasks

In a police cooperation center, officers from at least two and sometimes several countries work together in the office and in the field. On the one hand, inquiries from the security apparatus of one state to another state are processed directly by the respective officials in the cooperation center in the internal service, thus enabling efficient and rapid further work, on the other hand, a joint field and patrol service in the border area is provided. In the area of the so-called open borders according to the Schengen Agreement, this includes the veil search as well as general cooperation in the control of foreign vehicles and in import and export controls, also in cooperation with the organs of the tax authorities.

history

The first police cooperation center was set up in Thörl-Maglern in 2005 . In April 2015, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary, a joint celebration with representatives of the security apparatus from all participating states took place.

In the context of the refugee crisis in 2015 , the police cooperation centers briefly came into the public eye. As a result of the refugee crisis, the police cooperation center in Passau was set up with the German Federal Police and the Bavarian State Police .