site.btaGovernment Amends Interior Ministry Statutes

The government approved a draft decree amending and supplementing the regulations on the structure and activities of the Ministry of the Interior.

In 2024, a legal possibility was created to increase the number of staff of the ministry to boost border control and other activities.

Based on this change, the total number of staff of the Ministry of the Interior increased by 1,732, of which 1,264 were assigned to the General Directorate of Border Police.

It has been observed that the increased migration pressure leads to an increase in illegal activities of individuals and groups related to the preparation, commission and facilitation of illegal migration, smuggling, trafficking in human beings, vehicles, drugs, cultural and historical property and other crimes across the state border, and for the last two years there has been an increase in operational cases for such crimes. This has necessitated an increase in staff resources and the optimisation of subordination, a clear distribution of responsibilities between the structures and units of Border Police and increased control over the implementation of the directorate's activities.

This calls for a separation of the functions of the two areas of operational and investigative activity in the General Directorate of Border Police - countering illegal migration and smuggling, trafficking in human beings and other crimes across the state border.

In this regard, it is necessary to divide the above-mentioned areas of activity into two separate directorates - the Directorate for Countering Illegal Migration and the Directorate for Countering Crime and Smuggling across the State Border, the functional competence of which should include methodological assistance and control in both areas and in the territorial units of Border Police.