The International peacekeeping missions in which Swiss police are involved require specialists from different police units and from the border police. When abroad, these experts report to the UN or European organisations. They operate at different hierarchical levels, depending on whether they are on the field or not, for example for training.

The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) is responsible for these international missions. It carries out this task in cooperation with the Federal Department of Finance (FDF) and particularly with the management of the International Affairs section of the Federal Customs Administration, which is responsible to it for the selection and for the experts from this administration.

The permitted maximum CIVPOL contingent is 30 persons, police officers or border police. On average 40% of the contingent is deployed. The priority regions for Switzerland are Africa and the Balkans.

Framework credit

The budget earmarked for police activities abroad is derived from these successive messages to Parliament by the Federal Council which has since October 2002 provided a framework credit for civil police promotion. The contingent allocated to international police missions was frequently increased and currently consists of 30 police experts, border police and customs specialists.

The law of 19 December 2003 on civil peace promotion measures and on the strengthening of human rights and the ordinance of 2 December 2005 on personnel assigned to the task of peace promotion, on the strengthening of human rights and humanitarian aid (OPers-PDHH) govern the modalities and the conditions of employment contracts.