From 17 to 19 August 2026, the Cybercrime Programme Office of the Council of Europe (C-PROC) convened a three-day regional meeting in Bucharest, bringing together the two Asian hub countries of the GLACY-e project - the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Organised jointly under the GLACY-e and CyberSPEX projects, the meeting gathered 16 participants, including seven representatives from the Philippines and five from Sri Lanka, alongside four experts from selected European Union member states (Germany, Portugal and The Netherlands) spanning the judiciary, prosecution services, law enforcement, financial intelligence units and CERTs.
As state Parties to the Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention), both the Philippines and Sri Lanka serve as references for good practice in their respective regions through a South-South co-operation approach. Bringing the two hubs together provided a timely opportunity to align their efforts and establish a shared work plan for the years ahead.
The first day was dedicated to taking stock of progress and challenges over the preceding twelve months. Hub country representatives presented updates on training delivered and received, the integration of training modules into national curricula, and the extension of training to neighbouring countries. Discussions also covered gaps in electronic evidence capacities, joint operations, interagency dynamics and the use of parallel financial investigations. The afternoon shifted to a collaborative exercise, with participants pooling resources and developing a roadmap for co-operation covering 2027–2028.
The second day took the form of a roundtable with selected EU member states, centred on the Second Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime. Following an examination of the current state of international co-operation and an introduction to the Protocol's key provisions, participants discussed good practices and obstacles to co-operation among the represented countries, the solutions provided by the Protocol, and the progress of its implementation. The discussion extended to concrete avenues of co-operation between the two hubs and their European counterparts, with participants drawing on real cases to explore the practical challenges of gathering electronic evidence and maintaining its chain of custody.
The final day offered participants a series of study visits to Romanian institutions, including the National Prosecution Service, the National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC), the national Financial Intelligence Unit FIU and the National Police, but also to the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC) and Ministry of Justice. These visits provided direct exposure to Romanian approaches to the investigation and prosecution of cybercrime, as well as to incident response practices.
GLACY-e project
CyberSPEX project