Brussels, 25/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On 25 March, the European Commission announced that it had approved 22 new national multi-annual programmes under the “Asylum, migration and integration” fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF) for the period 2014-2020. These programmes will be supported by a total budget in the region of €1.8 billion.
The 22 national programmes approved by the Commission are 17 AMIF programmes (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom) and five ISF programmes (Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France and the Czech Republic). The United Kingdom, France and Germany have received the most money so far, with the programmes to be funded ranging from refugee resettlement programmes to border security programmes.
The AMIF aims to support efforts made at national level to “reinforce hosting capacity, improve the quality of asylum procedures in full respect of Union standards, integrate migrants at local and regional level and reinforce the viability of returns programmes”, the Commission explains. Nearly €100 million granted under the AMIF programmes will be used to support the Union's resettlement scheme over the period 2014-2015.
The Internal Security Fund (ISF) supports national efforts to improve the border management of the member states, reinforce cross-border cooperation between the law enforcement services and to increase the capacity of the member states effectively to manage risks related to security, such as terrorism and violent radicalisation, drugs trafficking, cyber-crime and cyber-security, the trafficking in human beings and other forms of organised crime. The AMIF and the ISF have a budget of nearly €7 billion in total for the period 2014-2020.
Thirty-six other national programmes will be approved later this year. (Solenn Paulic)