The Diplomat
Last Tuesday, the Council of Ministers approved the signing ad referendum of the Cooperation Agreement between Spain and Colombia on security and the fight against crime, as well as its referral to the Parliament and the expression of Spain’s consent to be bound by the aforementioned Agreement.
The text of this agreement was signed in Madrid on September 16, 2021 by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the Republic of Colombia, Iván Duque, during the latter’s official visit to Spain. According to the Government, cooperation in security and home affairs is “a fundamental area of the strategic partnership between Colombia and Spain, established in 2008 and reinforced last September” with the aforementioned official visit of Duque to Spain.
The objective of this agreement is to contribute to the development of bilateral relations “on the basis of the General Treaty of Cooperation and Friendship between the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of Colombia, signed in Madrid on October 29, 1992”. The agreement is also in line with the Agreement on Cooperation for the Prevention of Abuse and Control of Illicit Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, signed in Bogota on September 14, 1998, and the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the annexes applicable to the parties, adopted in New York on November 15, 2000.
The internationalization of conflicts and the difficulties in prosecuting them due to their cross-border and multidisciplinary nature “requires the creation of this agreement to provide legal coverage to the forms of cooperation, exchange of information and practical assistance between the State Security Forces and Corps of both Parties”, the Executive points out. Likewise, the increased vulnerability of thousands of people, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the proliferation of criminal activities between both States “make the present Agreement necessary in order to encircle the fight against this type of transnational crimes”.
