On Wednesday 16 July, as part of the 2028-2034 European budget (see EUROPE 13682/1), the European Commission proposed a €74 billion package for home affairs “to make Europe safer and more secure, to give the EU stronger external borders and to implement a fair and rigorous migration management system”, according to a press release.
This funding triples that allocated during the previous budgetary period, the Commission added. These ‘Home Affairs/Migration’ funds are also integrated into the €865 billion single National and Regional Partnership Fund.
They will be distributed as follows: €26 billion for migration management, €25 billion for border management, €12 billion for Frontex, €8 billion for internal security and €3 billion for Europol, the mandate of which will be strengthened in 2026.
Among other things, these funds will make it possible to: - “implement the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’, as regards the external and internal dimensions, with faster asylum procedures, stricter rules to prevent abuse, monitoring of fundamental rights and more effective returns”; - fully digitalise border control management, better equip border guards and equip law enforcement authorities with modernised capabilities.
According to the NGO PICUM, which defends undocumented migrants, “the proposal is to increase resources for funds that have sponsored violent border surveillance in the past (...). The same goes for Frontex, an agency that’s been accused of complicity in human rights violations at the borders multiple times”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)