Brussels, 03/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 31 March, the Commission announced that 21 projects had received grants, totalling 5.15 million euro, under its ARGO programme (2002-2006) in 2005. ARGO, an action programme for administrative cooperation in the fields of external borders, visas, asylum and immigration, and with a budget of some 26 million euro for the period 2002-2006, supports projects for cooperation between national administrations, to encourage and promote collaboration on specific matters and the improvement of practices and legislation. “ARGO is a good example of the need to provide practical tools for cooperation whenever policies or legislation are harmonised,” said Commissioner Franco Frattini. As an example, the Commission has just awarded a grant of 148,000 euro to Spain to step up maritime surveillance in its efforts to prevent sea-borne illegal immigration, particularly from Mauritania. Since 2002, 79 projects have been supported by ARGO. Apart from EU Member States, other countries, like Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Albania, Ukraine, Tunisia, Libya, Norway and Switzerland, have taken part in some of the projects. In 2006, the last year of the programme, ARGO will provide support for projects, totalling 5.2 million euro. From 2007, the framework programme “Solidarity and management of migratory flows for the period 2007-2013”, made up of four funds (European Fund for Refugees, the Integration Fund, the Return Fund and the External Border Fund) will meet the needs of administrative cooperation in these fields, supporting Community intervention on solidarity and sharing of costs (see related article).