The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs adopted the report by Tanja FAJON (S&D, SI) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing, as part of the Integrated Border Management Fund, the instrument for financial support for border management and visa.
Subject matter
This Regulation seeks to establish the instrument for financial support for border management and visa as part of the Integrated Border Management Fund for the period from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2027.
Objectives
As part of the Integrated Border Management Fund, the policy objective of the instrument shall be ensuring effective European integrated border management at the external borders while safeguarding the free movement of persons within it, in full compliance with the Union’s acquis and international obligations of the Union and its Member States arising from international instruments to which they are signatory.
The instrument shall contribute to the following specific objectives:
- supporting effective European integrated border management at the external borders implemented by the European Border and Coast Guard as a shared responsibility of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency and of the national authorities responsible for border management, to facilitate legitimate border crossings, to prevent and detect irregular immigration and cross-border crime and to effectively manage migratory flows;
- supporting the common visa policy to ensure a more harmonised approach among the Member States with regard to the issuance of visas and to facilitate legitimate travel and mitigate security risks.
General principles
The Commission and the Member States shall cooperate in the implementation of the instrument. The Commission shall set up a helpdesk and contact point to provide support to Member States and contribute to the effective allocation of funding.
Funding
The financial envelope for the implementation of the instrument for the period 2021-2027 shall be EUR 7 087 760 000 in 2018 prices (EUR 8 018 000 000 in current prices) broken down as follows: (i) EUR 4 252 833 000 in 2018 prices (EUR 4 811 000 000 in current prices) shall be allocated to the programmes implemented under shared management, of which EUR 138 962 000 in 2018 prices (EUR 157 200 000 in current prices) for the Special Transit Scheme, implemented under shared management; (ii) EUR 2 834 927 000 in 2018 prices (EUR 3 207 000 000 in current prices) shall be allocated to the thematic facility.
Co-financing rates
The contribution from the Union Budget shall not exceed 85% (as opposed to 75% as proposed by the Commission) of the total eligible expenditure of a project from Member States whose per capita gross national income ('GNI') is less than 90 % of that of the Union average and 75 % of the total eligible expenditure for other Member States.
Programmes
Each programme shall set out for each specific objective the types of intervention and an indicative breakdown of the programmed resources by type of intervention or area of support. As soon as a Member State decides to initiate projects with, in or in relation to a third country under this instrument, the Member State shall inform the organisations which represent the partners at national level as well as the members of the Steering Board within 10 days.
Information, communication and publicity
The recipients of Union funding shall promote the actions and their results, by providing coherent, effective and meaningful information to multiple relevant audiences, including media and the public in the relevant languages. To ensure the visibility of Union funding, recipients of Union funding shall refer to its origin when communicating on the action. To this end, recipients shall ensure that all communications to the media and the public display the Union emblem, and mention explicitly the Union’s financial support
The Commission shall implement information and communication actions relating to the implementation of this instrument, its actions and results. In particular, the Commission shall publish information concerning the development of the annual and multiannual programmes of the thematic facility. The Commission shall also publish the list of operations selected for support under the thematic facility on a publicly available website and shall update that list at least every three months.
Emergency assistance
The Commission may decide to provide, on an exceptional basis, financial assistance to address urgent and specific needs in the event of a duly justified emergency situation and as a last resort. These situations can result from an urgent and exceptional pressure where a large or disproportionate number of third-country nationals have crossed, are crossing or are expected to cross the external borders of one or more Member States, in particular at border sections where the impact level has been identified as such that it jeopardises the functioning of the whole Schengen area.
Where necessary for the implementation of the action, emergency assistance may cover expenditure which was incurred prior to the date of submission of the grant application or the request for assistance, but not prior to 1 January 2021.
Evaluation
By 31 December 2024, the Commission shall present a mid-term evaluation of the implementation of this Regulation in order to examine the effectiveness, efficiency, simplification and flexibility of the Fund. By 31 January 2030, the Commission shall carry out a retrospective evaluation.
Annual performance reports
By 15 February 2023 and by the same date of each subsequent year up to and including 2031, Member States shall submit to the Commission the annual performance report. Once accepted, the Commission shall make summaries of annual performance reports available to the European Parliament and to the Council, and shall publish them on a dedicated website.