The Republic of Srpska

            Representatives of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) visited the Republic of Srpska Ministry of the Interior, and members of the Department for Countering Drug Abuse of the BiH Ministry of Security also attended the meeting.             Representatives of EMCDDA expressed their readiness to provide support to the Republic of Srpska Ministry of the Interior in the field of specialist training of staff working on forensic analysis and other tasks related to countering drug abuse.             They also discussed the implementation of IPA-8 Project, which includes harmonization of regulations in the field of drugs with the EU acquis, as well as application of EU standards in collecting and exchanging intelligence on drugs at international level. Another topic they mentioned were trends in the field of drug-related crime in the Republic of Srpska, and the need to be included in the Early Warning System (EWS) managed by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in cooperation with Europol.             This system represents a very important tool for providing support to law enforcement agencies in terms of responding to appearance of new psychoactive substances the abuse of which is spreading across the region.