Brussels, 07/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 6 February, MEPs approved the increase in European immigration-related funding paid to countries in difficulty. They also accepted the European Commission's proposal to raise the rate of co-funding for projects in favour of those countries, as with Greece.
Steered by Nils Torvalds (ALDE, Finland), the two reports concerned the European fund for refugees, the returns fund, the fund for integration of third country nationals, and the fund for external borders. Without amending the amounts, MEPs agree that the European share of co-funding should be increased by 20 percentage points, up to 70%. For countries covered by the cohesion fund, the maximum rate would be raised to up to 95%. Proposals aim at ease the situation for countries with over-populated hosting centres and insufficient infrastructure, as is the case for Greece.
Torvalds states in his report: “Functioning management of migration flows has a great importance for the European Union. The inability of one member state to ensure efficient management of migration flows does not only affect the country in question, it also has an impact on many other member states as well”, adding that it is therefore in the interest of all member states that commitments taken in this respect should not suffer from the economic difficulties being experienced by some countries.
Currently, the four funds have the following budgets for the period 2007-2013: €825 million (integration of nationals), €700 million for the refugee fund, €1,820 million for external borders and €630 million for the returns fund. For the period 2014-2020, the Commission has proposed merging these tools into two funds - one for internal security (€4.6 billion) and the other for asylum and immigration (€3.9 billion). It calls for the JHA budget to be increased by 40%. (SP/transl.jl)