Ref. Ares(2014)527990 - 27/02/2014
BACKGROUND NOTE
Information on the overall outcome of the policy dialogues in the framework of the
preparation for programming of the Home Affairs Funds 2014-2020
Information from the Commission to the European Parliament in accordance with Article 13
of the Horizontal Regulation
In view of the LIBE Committee meeting of 6 March 2014, the present note aims to provide the
Members of the LIBE Committee with relevant information about the overall outcome of the
policy dialogues under the new Home Affairs Funds 2014-2020.
1. Context
Among the innovations built into the new Home Affairs Funds – the Asylum, Migration and
Integration Fund and the Internal Security Fund – is the move from the former system of
annual national programmes to one of multiannual national programmes covering the whole
Multiannual Financial Framework period. Another innovation is that the programming phase
is preceded by a single senior-level policy dialogue on home affairs priorities and funding
between the Commission and the individual Member States or, in the case of some parts of
the Internal Security Fund, the Schengen associated states, prior to the submission of their
multiannual programmes.
The objective of the policy dialogue was to foster joint understanding of individual baseline
situations and needs (“gaps analysis”) and identify funding priorities of each country in order
to:
give a strategic and political orientation (“results-oriented” and “added value”) to the
future use of funding with the aim to achieve the key EU Home Affairs policy
objectives and
facilitate the preparation, negotiation and approval of the national multiannual
programmes.
In total, 32 policy dialogues took place, namely 28 with the Member States and 4 with the
Schengen Associated states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland). They were
carried out as of early June and completed by mid-November last year. The outcome of the
policy dialogue with each country is recorded in agreed minutes. Due to the delay in the
adoption of the basic acts, i.e. the four Regulations, the agreed minutes also include the date
for the submission of the draft national programmes, in principle three months following the
policy dialogue, to allow for timely approval of national programmes.
Following the conclusion of the policy dialogues and pending the adoption of the four
Regulations by the European Parliament (vote in EP Plenary of 10-13 March), the preparatory
work for the future implementation of these new Funds is in full swing.
Once the four Regulations and relevant implementing and delegated acts are adopted, in
particular the one establishing the template for the national programmes, the national
programmes will be submitted formally; this is expected as of June 2014. A total of 58
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national programmes for both, the Asylum Migration and Integration Fund (27) and the
Internal Security Fund (31), are to be submitted by Member States and Schengen associated
countries for approval by the Commission. The latter will most likely start as of the 4th
quarter 2014.
In order to prepare the framework for the elaboration of the draft national programmes and
ensure timely implementation of the new Home Affairs Funds, the policy dialogues had to be
carried out in parallel with the on-going negotiations of the four Regulations. Member States
were informed that the final result of the negotiations will have to be taken into account when
drafting their national programmes. In particular, for policy dialogues which took place at the
end of 2013, the attention of Member States was drawn to the obligation to comply with the
minimum percentages which were introduced in the basic acts at the end of the negotiations.
'Comply or explain' rule was also communicated to all Member States in late 2013 and
recalled during the informal expert group's meeting organized for the preparation of
delegated/implementing acts, namely on 5 February 2014.
2. Overall outcome
The policy dialogues proved to be a reciprocally enriching experience for both the
Commission and the Member States as they allowed for a better common understanding of
the national baseline situations and needs, on the one hand, and of the overall EU level policy
priorities in the area of home affairs, on the other hand.
Following the Commission's preliminary gap analysis of individual national situations in the
respective fields of home affairs1, Member States were encouraged to identify within their
national policy frameworks those areas that could be proposed for EU home affairs funding.
On this basis, Member States are to develop a strategic approach in the preparation of their
multiannual programmes moving towards fostering a stronger link between EU funding and
EU policy objectives and priorities.
Bilateral discussion with each country also focused on desired outcomes and results to be
achieved with the support of the EU funding in the context of national strategies for asylum,
migration and security. Particular attention was put on how these outcomes and results will be
monitored and evaluated, namely using the appropriate indicators (common and programme
specific).
Preparation for the dialogues on the side of the Commission involved contacts and
cooperation with the Home Affairs agencies with the view to make the best use of their
expertise and knowledge of each country in the area falling under their remit. Frontex and
EASO also participated in some of the dialogues. Valuable input to the preparation of the
policy dialogues were also obtained through informal consultations with the most important
non-governmental and international organisations.
1 The policy dialogues were prepared through written exchanges with the Member States where key issues to be
discussed between the Commission and the Member States were already identified by the Commission and the
Member State.
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The dialogues took place in a good atmosphere with the Member States' side showing
openness and willingness to engage in discussions on all issues. The level of discussions
showed that Member States took the preparation seriously. Relevant national administrations
were represented at an adequate level allowing for exchange of views and decision making on
strategic policy orientations.
Some of the Member States need to develop a comprehensive strategic approach in order to
set specific funding priorities, in particular in the area of police cooperation where shared
management (national programme) is a novelty. Member States were encouraged to fully
align their actions under their national strategies with the EU level home affairs policy
priorities, so to avoid fragmentation and keep the critical mass.
Policy dialogues proved to be a valuable occasion to gather a preliminary overview on the
Member States' intentions to engage in Specific Actions for which they can get top-up
funding. These are mainly actions requiring joint efforts by Member States such as setting up
consular cooperation, including common visa application centres or other forms of pooling
resources, purchasing equipment for running joint operations by Frontex, joint return
operations, joint reintegration projects, etc. Overall, most Member States did not express clear
ideas and were encouraged to submit detailed proposals in the programming phase.
From informal feedback, Member States confirmed their positive perception of the policy
dialogues which according to them were a very useful step preceding the actual preparation of
their programmes. In particular, the dialogues were seen to encourage national administrations
to cooperate, coordinate upfront and start the reflection on the strategic objectives and funding
priorities. They also appreciated that it could contribute to strengthening the credibility of
using EU funding across the EU and improve their trust in a better and more effective
spending across the Member States.
Although involvement of partners was not necessary for the preparation of the policy
dialogues, a number of Member States carried out consultations with relevant partners already
at that stage which is very positive.
2.1 Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund
The specific needs of the Member States derive from their situation in terms of migratory
flows as well as from their geographical position. Another aspect determining the needs of a
given country is its historical experience and tradition in dealing with migration and
integration issues. Three groups of Member States could be identified.
The first group are those Member States with well-developed asylum systems although facing
strong migratory pressures due to secondary movements or for being main recipients of
asylum seekers. The key for them is to focus on providing services with particular attention to
vulnerable groups. They should continue putting efforts to optimise their asylum procedures
and, where appropriate, to enhance their reception capacities. These countries usually have
fully-fledged integration strategies including regional and local components. They are
encouraged to facilitate the access of third-country nationals, including beneficiaries of
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international protection, to the labour market and facilitate their educational integration.
Regarding management of irregular migration, they have well-established return policies
encompassing both components, forced and voluntary.
The second group are those Member States with asylum systems in the development stage
although not facing major migratory pressures because of being 'less attractive' immigration
destinations due to the lack of migrant's communities and the ''low social benefits''. These
countries need to strengthen the asylum procedures as well as the quality and speed of the
decision making process, improve reception conditions and integration services. They are
usually in the stage of putting in place national integration strategies which often lack regional
or local dimension. They also need to build capacities at all levels of administration dealing
with integration issues. As regards the management of irregular migration, they need to
further improve their detention conditions in line with EU standards and develop alternatives
to detention for both, asylum seekers and irregular migrants.
The third group are those Member States with weak asylum systems and reception conditions
facing serious difficulties and strong migratory pressure. They are struggling to comply with
the EU standards and need to take actions in order to upgrade and develop their asylum
systems and improve reception conditions to better face the emergency situations of heavy
migratory pressure. They also need to make considerable efforts in improving quality and
speed of asylum procedures. In the area of irregular migration, strong focus is placed on
forced return. They need to aim at more effective and sustainable return policies with a
stronger emphasis on voluntary returns and reintegration in the countries of origin. These
Member States often require additional financial and technical support from the EU.
All Member States were encouraged to develop and strengthen their monitoring systems of
asylum reception capacities and to put in place national contingency planning mechanism for
a flexible reception system allowing them to be better prepared to cope with unexpected
migratory influx.
Most Member States showed interest in resettlement, although only few of them have an
established national resettlement programme. On the other hand, only a few Member States
are ready to accept relocation as a sign of solidarity whereas the big majority of them have
strong reticence to put in place a relocation scheme.
Strengthening of policies in the area of legal migration, including through pre-departure
integration schemes and development of enhanced integration strategies with a focus on the
local and regional levels were other general priorities promoted in the dialogues.
Voluntary return was promoted in the policy dialogues as a preferred option to forced return
as it is the most humane and effective method for returning irregularly staying third-country
nationals. Strong emphasis was also put on the reintegration component and on developing
cooperation between Member States and with third-countries. At the moment, there is a big
variation between Member States using voluntary return as a rule, with a ratio of 50/50 on
voluntary versus forced return (some 60/40 or even 80/20) and those using mainly forced
return.
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2.2 Internal Security Fund
The internal security needs vary between Member States stemming from different situations
as regards compliance with the EU requirements for the border management and Schengen
governance or as regards the level of police cooperation or because they are confronted with
various forms of crime.
In the area of
borders and visa, Member States have broadly underlined their commitment to
improve their border management and technical and organisational capacities related to
EUROSUR, as well as large-scale IT systems (VIS and SIS II) and to accelerate preparatory
work when appropriate. The policy dialogues helped to further promote two of our important
policies and gain the commitment of all Member States to develop them:
Smart Borders (SB): while the main part of the expenditure for SB (if agreed) would
come from the centralised management part of the ISF, most Member States are ready
to invest in the SB initiative. Those who are less convinced agreed at least to assess its
feasibility or want to ensure that their current system is interoperable with the future
SB technologies;
Consular cooperation: Member States of small and medium size are mainly interested
in concluding representation agreements, while bigger Member States do not see the
benefit in these as they do not find partners providing large enough coverage for their
needs.
In relation to border management and Schengen governance, the overarching priorities are the
use of modern technologies at the border, development of EUROSUR and implementation of
the Schengen acquis. In view of facilitating travel of EU citizens, Member States were
encouraged to implement the Automated Border Controls (ABC) systems by implementing
fingerprint readers. Nonetheless, a number of them remain reluctant to invest in ABC gates
until the decision process on the SB package is more advanced or because they do not
consider it cost-efficient. EUROSUR provides for the development of a surveillance system
for the EU external land and sea border, with the possibility to include air borders and checks
at border crossing points. It is therefore important that the countries primarily ensure inclusion
of all relevant authorities in their National Coordination Centres and establish the Analysis
Layer of the National Situational Picture. The implementation of the main findings and
recommendations from the Schengen evaluation represent another general issue that was
frequently discussed and well received by Member States in the policy dialogues.
The development of IT systems was also an overarching issue for discussion, in particular the
rollout of the VIS and full implementation of SIS II, including backup capability to ensure
national systems to be resilient to cyber-attacks in terms of physical, computer and data
security, and is high on the list of priorities. Member States are also committed to increasing
consular cooperation through establishment of common facilities or by concluding
representation agreements for better visa issuance coverage.
In the area of
prevention and fight against organised crime, all Member States agreed to
develop a national strategic approach which identifies their shortcomings and main priorities
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in a multiannual perspective. Their strategies are to be supported by a few horizontal
instruments (human resources training including law enforcement training scheme - LETS,
financial investigation and forensics) that contribute to achieve the goals in the respective
sectorial priorities successfully.
Some general issues were raised in all policy dialogues as they applied to all Member States.
One of these is the promotion of cross-border law enforcement cooperation and the
development of a cross-border culture of law enforcement through EU training. Also,
important is Member States' participation in the EU policy cycle on serious and organised
crime, in particular the new policy cycle priorities relevant for a given country based on the
Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA).
Cyber security, anti-terrorism, anti-corruption and drug trafficking are among the most
important sectorial priorities for most Member States. Some of them also need to focus on
crisis management including chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats.
The fight against the trafficking of human beings was raised by a majority of Member States
as a possible priority area for funding. The policy cycle has got very broad support by
Member States and the challenge is to use it as an effective tool for implementing cooperation
actions among Member States to address their priorities and to link it with actions funded
under centralised management.
3. Next steps
The next step is the preparation for the formal submission and negotiation of draft national
programmes in view of their approval by the Commission. This will be an iterative process
consisting of examination of submitted draft programmes and providing observations to the
Member States with request for amended versions until the programmes can be considered as
satisfactory and ready for approval.
It must be underlined that some Member States for which the policy dialogue took place quite
early and which had already started working on their draft national programmes will have to
revise them quite substantially in order to take into account the outcome of the negotiations of
the four MFF Home Affairs Regulations.
On the side of the Commission, the obligations imposed on Member States by the final texts
of the Regulations will be particularly scrutinized. The Commission will pay particular
attention to the compliance with the minimum percentages introduced in the Regulations at
the request of the European Parliament. In particular, the Commission will carefully analyse
the justifications for any derogation to the minimum percentages included in the basic acts for
some objectives.
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