At the beginning of May, this year, a delegation of the Protection and Guard Service took part in Beijing, China to the VIII^th Conference of the International Association of the Dignitary Protection Services (A.P.P.S.).

The Protection and Guard Service is part of the Leading Committee of APPS and its tasks are the surveillance and coordination of the activities of the Association, together with the services in Switzerland, Israel and Poland. S.P.P. is a founder member of this organization.

The main themes approached at this summit were the following:

• perfecting the procedures for the protection of dignitaries, the exchange of information on terrorism, bio-terrorism, organized crime that may affect the life and activity of dignitaries;
• contrasting the performances of the services that have an independent structure with those of the services that are part of other institutions and ministries;
• perfecting the activities of coordination and cooperation during joint missions and international reunions;
• standardizing the procedures of carrying out the joint international missions for the protection of dignitaries.

The Protection and Guard Service is part of The European Network of the Forces for the Protection of Dignitaries (ENPPF).

The Association is made up of the structures of protection of the dignitaries in the member states of the European Union and it was established in 2002, on the basis of a Decision of The European Union Council.

The members of the association laid the foundation of a mutual agenda of the activities that are carried out on the occasion of the visit of a dignitary from a country that is a member of the E.U. to another member - country.

At present the presidency of ENPPF is held by Finland (January- June 2007); then, there follows Germany (July - December 2007).

Within September - October, the German party will organize a working Conference of ENPPF that will be attended by the services of protection of the V.I.P.S.s in all the E.U. member states.