ROADPOL Conference 14 – 15 September 2020

Due to the Corona situation the scheduled ROADPOL Conference in March 2020 had to be cancelled. We all had the hope to meet each other in Germany in September 2020 to hold the first ROADPOL elections. But again this conference had to be cancelled too. For the first time, the meetings of the Operational Working Group and the Council were held digitally. This posed particular challenges as elections were to be held for the first time.

Not everything worked perfectly. Some members were unable to attend for various technical reasons or holidays. But in the end 23 members came together and elected the new ROADPOL Council for the first time.

The conference started with the digital meeting of the Operational Working Group (OPG) on 14 September. 

After the former Chair of OPG, Egbert-Jan van Hasselt, had left due to his retirement, the members elected Marijke Eskes (Netherlands) as their new Chair of OPG by an overwhelming majority of 96%.
Marijke ESKES has been Vice-Chair of OPG since the days of TISPOL and is highly respected in the ROADPOL family. By her election Marijke automatically becomes a member of the ROADPOL Executive Committee according to ROADPOL's statutes.

OPG had an exchange of views on the impact of the Corona virus on traffic police work.
Then the members adopted the Wallplanner 2021 with all dates for the planned ROADPOL operations 2021.

On Tuesday 15 September, the ROADPOL Council met for the first time, also virtually.

The elections of the ROADPOL Executive Committee were on the agenda. According to the statutes, the TISPOL Executive Committee, elected in 2019, had continued its work in the newly established ROADPOL until the first official ROADPOL elections.

First of all, the members expressed their confidence in Volker Orben and elected him unanimously as the new ROADPOL President. Volker Orben (Germany) had taken on the difficult task of transforming the former TISPOL Network into a new independent association, ROADPOL e.V.

Sanja Veic (Croatia) was elected as Vice-President

with 96% of the votes. She had already been responsible for the webmaster and media areas as a member of the Executive Committee since 2019.
This is the first time that a woman has been appointed to the top level of management of TISPOL / ROADPOL.

Elvira Zsinkai  (Hungary) was also re-elected with 91% of the votes. She is also in charge of the webmaster and media section and has the main responsibility for ROADPOL's Facebook page, which now has over 2000 subscribers.

Paolo Cestra (Iraly), President of Honour was re-elected to the Executive Committee with 96% of the votes. The former President's experience and international contacts are of particular importance to ROADPOL, especially with regard to the extension of our contacts to Africa and the Balkans.

New to the ROADPOL Executive Committee is Tasos Ashikkis (Cyprus) who received 82% votes in favour. Tasos is a long term member of the OPG and the responsible person for the forum. As assistant to the project management of the ROADPOL Safety Days, he also had a significant influence on the great success of the campaign. He replaces Demetris Demetriou from Cyprus, who unfortunately had to leave ROADPOL due to the large number of commitments he has had to fulfil.

Heinz-Albert Stumpen (Germany) was unanimously elected as ROADPOL General Secretary for the next 2 years.

The Executive Committee is completed by Marijke Eskes (Netherlands) who is automatically a member of the Executive Committee as Chair of OPG.

We congratulate all Executive Committee members on their election and wish them all the best for the following year of their mandate.

The Council also had to decide on two new membership applications.

Abdulla Al Falasi (Dubai Police) explained the reasons for his country to join ROADPOL as Observer. He gave a very informative presentation about the Dubai Police and the development of the traffic situation there.
The application of membership was approved by 96% of the members.

The next country to apply for membership was Portugal. Portugal had been a member of TISPOL in the past. The application was adopted unanimously.

ROADPOL is looking forward to the cooperation with our new and old partners.

The ROADPOL Safety Days also enabled new contacts to be established with the Western Balkan countries, particularly Kosovo. We would like to thank you for supporting our campaign and hope that the exchange with these countries can be intensified in the future.

The next ROADPOL Conference will take place in Cyprus in April 2021. We hope that we will not have to cancel this conference again and hold it digitally. Especially the personal exchange after the official dates is the basis for the success of ROADPOL.