No more military-style training for police
Police cadets will no longer receive military-style training when they join the force, as part of the government’s drive to create a friendly and more effective service, which is also going to lead to changes in the way that firefighters and coast guards are instructed, sources said yesterday. Anyone joining the police force currently goes through several weeks of training at military camps in Thebes and Avlona but Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis is set to scrap this and adopt a training scheme that is based on modern policing methods and which would be hosted at facilities belonging to the police, not the army. Sources said that the army is paid 900,000 euros a year to train police cadets but Chrysochoidis’s reasons for making the switch are not financially motivated. Instead, he wants to «demilitarize» the training, according to ministry sources. The minister also wants to make the training more practical through the adoption of simulations and drills while cooperating more closely with the European Police College (CEPOL). A ministry committee is also going to be set up to examine the quality of the instruction that police cadets as well as trainee coast guards and firefighters receive with a view to improving it. The panel is expected to deliver its findings in two months. Another change that is likely to be made this year is that the interview process for admitting firefighters and coast guards into their respective services will be replaced with written examinations.
