The Commission presents an ex post evaluation
reports for the period 2011 to 2013 of actions co-financed under
the framework programme 'Solidarity and Management of Migration
Flows'.
This consists of four instruments (the 'SOLID
Funds'): the External Borders Fund (EBF), the European
Refugee Fund (ERF), the European Fund for the Integration of
third-country nationals (EIF) and the European Return Fund
(RF).
The aim of the SOLID General Programme was to
provide financial support to Member States to help them better
manage the Union's external borders, and better implement the
common policies on asylum and migration.
This summary concerns the European Borders Fund
(EBF), which was established with the aim of managing the EU
external borders, with a focus on efficient organisation of
controls and management of the flows of persons, uniform
application of EU legislation by border guards and improvement of
consular services. It was allocated a total of EUR 1 097 million
under the SOLID Funds and had an average absorption rate of 87%
under the 2011-13 annual programmes.
Overall, Member States considered the EBF
objectives relevant in view of their needs related to the
management of the EU external borders and the processing of
Schengen visas The report makes the following points on the
EBF:
- in both 2007-10 and 2011-13, the highest
allocations of funding went to the same three Member States:
Italy, Spain and Greece. In addition, the EBF was flexible
enough to respond to the changing needs induced by the
beginning of the migration crisis by allocating additional
resources to the Member States affected via emergency
actions;
- the EBF made a crucial contribution to the
application of the Schengen acquis considering both the increase of
migration flows experienced since 2011 and the financial
constraints faced by many Member States at the time. The EBF
2011-13 actions made a positive contribution towards a progressive
establishment of a common integrated border management system by
promoting harmonised checks on persons at border crossing
points through training programmes, the construction and
upgrading of the crossing points and the acquisition of vehicles,
vessels and aircrafts used for border patrols. However, only few
Member States reported that Fund support was essential for the
acquisition of state-of-the-art technology at the EU external
borders;
- the Fund helped tackle the fragmentation of Member
States information exchange systems by supporting the
development at the national level of EU systems such as VIS and SIS
II and EUROSUR. In a context where national funding was scarce, the
Fund helped ensure that these systems became operational, as it
contributed to the finalisation of their building
blocks;
- for both the 2007-10 and 2011-13 periods, the EBF
moderately contributed to the development of consular
cooperation between Member States and
third-countries.
- overall, EBF investments were considered to be
sustainable: most of the assets acquired and the knowledge
generated were still being used at the time of the evaluation. Many
activities implemented under ISF built on the results of the EBF. A
few specific projects faced financial constraints and therefore
raised sustainability concerns, such as the deployment of
immigration liaison officers in third countries;
- EBF investments were found to be complementary and
coherent with activities funded under other EU Funds, with European
Border and Coast Guard Agency activities, as well as with
national investments. EBF added value has been assessed as being
particularly high in Member States with limited financial resources
or facing tight budgetary constraints.
The report makes certain observation common to
all four funds. In the case of the EBF, the main findings have
already been taken into consideration under the Internal
Security Fund (ISF), which succeeded the EBF. The report notes
in this respect that the absence of effective monitoring and
evaluation mechanisms, common to all Member States, was a
critical issue for the evaluation of the SOLID Funds, and was
addressed for ISF and AMIF (which succeeded the ERF, EIF and RF),
with a first list of common indicators included in the legal base
and a common monitoring and evaluation framework. Furthermore,
additional flexibility has been built in to the allocation
mechanism for funds, but the unbalanced distribution key remains an
important issue, which would still need to be addressed in the next
multiannual financial framework.