{"id":375683,"date":"2024-07-04T17:40:24","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T15:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/07\/04\/frontiere-esterne-fondi-ue-ecre-picum\/"},"modified":"2024-07-09T20:33:39","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T18:33:39","slug":"external-borders-eu-funds-ecre-picum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/07\/04\/external-borders-eu-funds-ecre-picum\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the walls there is more. EU spending on external borders increases, among new technologies and third countries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – It’s not walls, it’s not physical barriers, but the increase in EU funds for the management of the external borders of the Twenty-Seven – and therefore of the European Union itself – doesn’t mean that EU taxpayers’ money is not pushing the strengthening of border infrastructure<\/strong>, with major concerns about respect for the rights of migrants arriving at the Union’s borders. This is the finding of a study<\/a> conducted jointly by the NGO networks European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) and Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), also based on the 24 national programs of the Border and Visa Management Instrument<\/strong> (BMVI)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\"Chiara<\/a>
ECRE and PICUM Policy Officer Chiara Catelli at the European Parliament (19 March 2024)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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The BMVI is one of the two components of the Integrated Border Management Fund (IBMF), which replaced the former Internal Security Fund-Borders and Visas (ISF) and has experienced a 135 per cent increase from \u20ac3 billion (in the 2014-2020 multi-year budget) to \u20ac6.2 billion (in 2021-2027)<\/strong>. More than half of the funds (59 per cent) are administered by member states through shared management, and the remaining 41 per cent by the EU Commission through a thematic instrument. The increase in resources has already been seen since the start of implementation in 2021, both through the interim review of the EU budget (which added \u20ac1 billion) and with the approval of the Migration and Asylum Pact<\/a> (which will bring in at least \u20ac600 million per year for the solidarity pool from 2027), as well as \u20ac620 million in transfers from other Common Provisions Regulation funds. Of the \u20ac6.2 billion planned until 2027, member states have received \u20ac4 billion, which can already be quantified at +45 per cent over what they have received in seven years under the ISF<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

“BMVI funding is being used for an increasingly complex and digitized system of border surveillance,” which is being exploited to deploy “an interconnected network of controls that harms people arriving at EU borders<\/strong>,” is the warning issued by ECRE and PICUM Policy Officer Chiara Catelli<\/strong>, author of the research Beyond Walls and Fences: EU funding used for a complex and<\/em> digitized<\/em> border surveillance system<\/em> presented today (July 4). “The EU Commission’s refusal to allow the funding of walls and fences is a fig leaf to cover up other harmful measures that border funds can already support in the member states<\/strong>,” is the commentary about the\u00a0issue that has become rather thorny<\/a> on the term border “infrastructure” and the difference (more than technical, of interpretation of the Union’s founding Treaties in agreement with the majority in the European Parliament) on the issue of funding border barriers with EU funds.<\/p>\n