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Official translation
27 August 2008
Government of the Republic of Lithuania
RESOLUTION No 1170
of 31 October 2007
ON THE ISSUE OF THE Declaration TO DESIGNATE the European Police Office AS THE CENTRAL OFFICE FOR COMBATING EURO COUNTERFEITING
Vilnius
Pursuant to Article 3 of the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on the Ratification of the International Convention for the Suppression of Counterfeiting Currency and its Protocols (Valstybės žinios (Official Gazette) No 40-1290, 2004; No 55-2122, 2007) and implementing Article 1 of Council Decision 2005/511/JHA of 12 July 2005 on protecting the euro against counterfeiting, by designating Europol as the Central Office for combating euro counterfeiting (OJ 2005 L 185, p. 135), the Government of the Republic of Lithuania has resolved:
1. To issue the Declaration on Designating the European Police Office as the Central Office for Combating Euro Counterfeiting, as appended (hereinafter referred to as "Declaration").
2. To commission the representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to forward the declaration to the to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
3. To instruct the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania to forward the Declaration to the commissioned representative of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas
Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekūnas
Appendix to Resolution No 1170 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania of 31 October 2007
DECLARATION TO DESIGNATE THE EUROPEAN POLICE OFFICE AS THE CENTRAL OFFICE FOR COMBATING EURO COUNTERFEITING
By the Declaration to Designate the European Police Office as the Central Office for Combating Euro Counterfeiting (hereinafter referred to as "this Declaration"), the Republic of Lithuania, a Member State of the European Union, has given the European Police Office (hereinafter referred to as "Europol") a mandate to combat euro counterfeiting.
In order for the Geneva Convention of 1929 to function more effectively, the Republic of Lithuania shall in future fulfil its obligations as follows:
1. With regard to euro counterfeiting, Europol shall perform — in the framework of its objective according to the Council Act of 26 July 1995 drawing up the Convention based on Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, on the establishment of a European Police Office (Europol Convention) (OJ special edition 2004, Chapter 18, Vol. 1, p. 7) — the following central office functions within the meaning of Articles 12 to 15 of the Geneva Convention of 1929:
1.1. Europol shall centralise and process, in accordance with the Europol Convention, all information of a nature to facilitate the investigation, prevention and combating of euro counterfeiting and shall forward this information without delay to the national central offices of the Member States;
1.2. in accordance with the Europol Convention, in particular in accordance with Article 18 thereof and the Council Act of 12 March 1999 adopting the rules governing the transmission of personal data by Europol to third States and third bodies (OJ special edition 2004, Chapter 19, Vol. 1, p. 17), Europol shall correspond directly with the central offices of third countries to fulfil the tasks set down in points 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5 of this Declaration;
1.3. Europol shall, insofar as it considers it expedient, forward to the central offices of third countries a set of specimens of actual euro;
1.4. Europol shall regularly notify the central offices of third countries, giving all necessary particulars, of new currency issued and the withdrawal of currency from circulation;
1.5. except in cases of purely local interest, Europol shall, insofar as it considers it expedient, notify the central offices of third countries of:
1.5.1. any discovery of counterfeit or falsified Euro currency.Notification of the counterfeit or falsification shall be accompanied by a technical description of the counterfeit, to be provided solely by the institution whose notes have been counterfeited.A photographic reproduction or, if possible, a specimen counterfeited note should be transmitted.In urgent cases, a notification and a brief description made by the police authorities may be discreetly communicated to the central offices interested, without prejudice to the notification and technical description mentioned above;
2. Where Europol is unable to carry out the tasks specified in point 1 of this Declaration in accordance with the Europol Convention, the national central offices of the Member States shall retain competence.
