First in-person international event: VicTory’s Cross-Country Cooperation Seminar in Bilbao

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Published: 06/01/2026

On the 18th of November 2025, the VicTory project hosted its first in-person international event, which brought together criminal justice professionals, restorative justice practitioners, law enforcement representatives, victim support workers and civil society organisations in Bilbao, Spain. The seminar was focused on cooperation to strengthen integrated victim-centred responses to hate-motivated and extremism-related harm.

Gathering participants from Spain, Portugal, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Belgium and Northen Ireland, this event favoured the creation of a shared space to exchange experiences and jointly explore practical, cross-country solutions to improve multi-agency cooperation in victim support. Across panels and discussions, participants emphasised the need for:

• Well-defined cooperation models
• Clear standards and protocols
  

These were seen as essential to prevent secondary victimisation, particularly for victims who experience these incidents as attacks on their perceived identity.
A fundamental reflection throughout the day was that hate-motivated incidents can impact not only the targeted individuals, but also the wider community in which the harm occurs. As a result, participants agreed on how responses would become more effective if they consider this broader impact, whilst keeping the victim’s rights, needs and safety at the centre.

The seminar also showed initiatives and approaches under development to increase access to support, information and safe reporting routes. Presentations opened a collective reflection on the current state of victim support across partners countries, including key lessons emerging from the VicTory National Cooperation Workshops, such as what victims need at the first point of contact and where services face operational challenges.

Restorative justice appeared as a central discussion theme, with the contributions of VicTory’s Expert Advisory Board in a roundtable discussion.  Further to sharing good examples and practices of restorative justice across Europe, the roundtable allowed for a deeper reflection:

• Justice, even in its more inclusive and participatory forms, is about power dynamics. If hate and crime create a power unbalance, professionals, either from the justice sector or civil society must mitigate it.
  
  

By doing so, those victimised can regain a sense of control over their own lives. Moreover, challenges and shortcoming were also discussed, including:

• Fragmentation of services
• Institutional silos
• Legal gaps and unclear definitions
• Lack of specialised training
• Persistent difficulty in safeguarding inclusion and adequate representation.
  
  

In mixed-country working groups, participants explored concrete cross-border ideas and conditions needed for smoother cooperation between agencies, approaches to first contact with victims, ways to tailor support to victims’ needs and the role of justice responses in reinforcing a victim-centred pathway.

The overarching conclusion of the seminar was clear: victim support entails coordinated multi-agency practices that safeguards victims’ self-determination, creates secure spaces to avoid secondary victimisation and guarantees that support measures are proportionate and needs based.


Next Steps
The insights gathered in Bilbao will directly contribute to VicTory’s upcoming resources and practical outputs, including:

• A multi-agency cooperation framework, planned for release in 2026, informed by cross-country practitioner’s input;
• Development of a networking platform;
• Drafting and piloting of a restorative-led programme.