Integrated Border Management Fund - Performance

Programme in a nutshell

Concrete examples of achievements (*)

^{(*) Key achievements in the table state which period they relate to. Many come from the implementation of the predecessor programmes under the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework. This is expected and is due to the multiannual life cycle of EU programmes and the projects they finance, where results often follow only after completion of the programmes. Verifications are still ongoing in some Member States, in line with the procedure to assess the Annual Implementation Reports and the reporting cycle. Thus, the figures are not yet fully consolidated.}

Budget for 2021-2027

Rationale and design of the programme

The Integrated Border Management Fund (IBMF) creates EU added value by addressing challenges in the areas of the management of the external borders and common visa policy that cannot be adequately addressed by the Member States acting on their own.

Budget

Budget programming (million EUR):

^{(*) Only Article 15(3) of the financial regulation.}

  Financial programming:
  + EUR 396.4 million (+ 6%)
  compared to the legal basis*

^{* Top-ups pursuant to Article 5 of the multiannual financial framework regulation are excluded from financial programming in this comparison.}

The initial financial programming for the BMVI as per the legal base was 5 241 million EUR. This amount was affected by further modifications. On one hand, it was reinforced by almost 621 million from the structural funds in the context of the Greek Partnership Agreement, 85 million were added in the context of different draft budget procedures 2021-2024, the Fund also absorbed 50 million of unused appropriations from the agencies. On the other hand, the BMVI was reduced by 360 million in order to finance various legislative initiatives concerning DG HOME Agencies, of which almost half was used for the revision of Europol’s mandate.

Budget performance – implementation

Multiannual cumulative implementation rate at the end of 2022 (million EUR):

Annual voted budget implementation (million EUR)⁽¹⁾:

^{(1) Voted appropriations (C1) only.}

Contribution to horizontal priorities

Green budgeting

Contribution to green budgeting priorities (million EUR):

• In line with the EU’s commitments to work towards achieving the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs), the BMVI and CCEI regulations commit, without having a fund-specific target, to contributing to achieving the EU’s goal of spending at least 30% of its total budget on supporting climate objectives and its ambition to spend 7.5% of the annual EU budget on biodiversity in 2024 and 10% in both 2026 and 2027, while considering the existing overlaps between climate and biodiversity goals.
• This could happen, for example, by focusing on green procurement regarding (small-scale) assets and infrastructure / information technology systems, subject to specific provisions ensuring that products/services are chosen that reduce climate impacts by applying the best available technologies, using renewable energy in buildings, enhancing insulation, etc. For the time being no strict conditions on national programming or project selection, but Member States are encouraged to prioritise environment-friendly actions.

Gender

Contribution to gender equality (million EUR) (*):

<sup>(*) Based on the applied gender contribution methodology, the following scores are attributed at the most granular level of intervention possible:
- 2: interventions the principal objective of which is to improve gender equality;
- 1: interventions that have gender equality as an important and deliberate objective but not as the main reason for the intervention;
- 0: non-targeted interventions (interventions that are expected to have no significant bearing on gender equality);
- 0*: score to be assigned to interventions with a likely but not yet clear positive impact on gender equality.</sup>

• The IBMF/BMVI is committed to the horizontal approach of the EU budget in which equality between women and men and rights and equal opportunities for all, and the mainstreaming of these objectives, should be taken into account and promoted throughout the preparation, implementation and monitoring of relevant programmes.
• In the broader context, in order to receive payments from the Commission, the Member States’ programmes for the funds co-managed by DG Migration and Home Affairs will have to comply with the number of horizontal enabling conditions, one of which concerns the effective application and implementation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, including the equality of women and men. The horizontal enabling conditions have to remain fulfilled throughout the entire programming period and Member States have to report on their application to the programme monitoring committee and the Commission.
• As regards the types of action supported by the BMVI, training and knowledge sharing habitually tackle gender-specific issues, which is why they are considered to be financial interventions that may have the potential to impact gender equality, among other areas. Therefore, the amount under the gender score (0*) comprises interventions relating to training and knowledge sharing under both direct and shared management.
• Given the early stages of implementation and the uneven progress in the first reporting of data from the Member States, the current values should be treated with caution and may be subject to revision once complete and standardised datasets become available in 2024.

Digital

Contribution to digital transition (million EUR):

It is considered that activities under the specific objectives of the IBMF/BMVI mentioned below may partially contribute to the goal of digital transition:

• supporting effective European integrated border management at the external borders;
• supporting the common visa policy.

The amount contributing to the goals of the digital transition covers activities and interventions relating to the digitalisation of administration (government information and communications technology solutions, e-services, etc.) under shared management.

The CCEI does not have activities that contribute to the goals of digital transition.

Budget performance – outcomes

^{Due to the concurrent development of several reporting modules for the Member States in the System for Fund Management in the European Union – 2021 (SFC2021), the Commission is not in a position to provide the 2022 results this year. This will be corrected in next year’s reporting.}

• The approval of the Member State programmes for 2021-2027, which represent the bulk of the resources of the programme, took place in the last quarter of 2022, in line with the timing of most programmes covered by the common provisions regulation. Monitoring systems at the Member State level are currently being developed.
• Given the very early stage of implementation and the lack of structured data transmission in 2022, it is not yet possible to carry out any meaningful assessment of progress towards achieving the milestones and targets only recently established by the Member States⁽¹⁾.
• Overall, the implementation of programme will inevitably be affected by the energy crisis and the general increase in prices, especially as regards direct management, due to the use of fixed unit rates for certain types of costs. Since, based on the current legal framework, these rates cannot be updated to take inflation into account, they can result in the insufficient coverage of the real expenditure by the organisations involved in the implementation of the actions. This, in turn, can lead to reduced participation in future calls for proposals, along with project activities that need to be removed from the scope of existing support, having become non-financially viable.
• However, increased prices may also have an effect on the delivery of projects under shared management. Some Member States have already noted that the price of equipment and other acquisitions has been subject to fluctuations, with increases that have vastly exceeded expectations in the construction industry in particular, but also with respect to the availability of chipsets and equipment. The cost of travelling has also been greatly affected, reducing the possibility of in-person gatherings. Continued pressure on resources could result in a lower level of achievement of key performance indicators and influence the implementation of transnational initiatives.
• As regards direct management, in view of their specific nature and legislative objectives, the performance of transnational Union actions cannot be captured by the key performance indicators. Nonetheless, they complement the implementation of policy objectives at the national level through Member States’ programmes by developing policy analysis and innovation, transnational mutual learning and partnerships and testing new initiatives and actions across the EU. The actions financed under the Thematic Facility 2021-2022 have been kicking off since the second half of 2022, with some calls for proposals remaining under evaluation. With the Union actions, the Commission supported valuable projects in the area of innovations in border management in 2021-2022.
• As covered in the budget implementation section, the programme provided essential and timely support to those Member States most affected by the mass influx of people from Ukraine by contributing to the ‘reinforcement of capacity to manage EU external borders under urgent and exceptional pressure’ via the emergency assistance strand. This included support for managing external border crossings in line with the Commission’s operational guidelines⁽²⁾ and first-reception activities within the area dedicated to border controls. In agreement with the Commission, a list of performance indicators and supporting evidence was specified in the grant agreements with the beneficiary Member States. The preliminary findings indicate that the targets have been achieved in full.
• For the CCEI, with regard to the main performance indicator of the instrument – the availability of customs controls equipment and its adherence to the common list of equipment⁽³⁾ that should be available for each type of border crossing point / customs laboratory – there is currently an overall adherence level of 9.28% for all border crossing points, with a further breakdown for border crossing points as follows: air: 11%; land: 7%; mobile: 23%⁽⁴⁾; post: 11%; rail: 8%; sea: 12%. These data clearly show that there are still critical equipment needs across all borders, in which the CCEI will continue to play an essential role.

^{(1) As is standard practice for shared management programmes, and in line with the legal framework, the milestones and targets have been established by the Member States based on their strategy and needs assessments and in line with the available resources indicatively planned in the programmes across predefined types of interventions. The Member States are indeed best placed to tailor the design of the programmes to their national context and needs. The methodology for target setting was shared with the Commission, which also provided methodological advice to the Member States. The milestones, targets and related methodology can be adjusted during the programming period in duly justified cases, such as a revision of the programme's strategy, relevant external contextual factors and changes in the distribution or volume of the available resources, and following a review by the Commission. An overall assessment of the relevance of the strategy and its targets compared to the evolving needs at both the Member State and the EU level will be part of the midterm evaluation of the programme.
(2) Commission Communication providing operational guidelines for external border management to facilitate border crossings at the EU-Ukraine borders (2022/C 104 I/01) (OJ C 104I, 4.3.2022, p. 1).
(3) The common list of equipment that should be available for each border crossing point / customs laboratory is established by cross-checking the risk and threats identified by Member States at the time of their proposals for each of their border crossing point /customs laboratory with the items of equipment that should be available at border crossing points /customs laboratories to address the identified risks and threats. This defines the ideal common list of equipment that should be available for that border crossing point /customs laboratory. To calculate the degree of adherence to the ideal common list of equipment, the customs control equipment available at each border crossing point /customs laboratory is checked against the ideal common list of equipment that should be available at that border crossing point /customs laboratory.
(4) The common list of equipment was adopted at the meeting of the CCEI Coordination Expert Group on 1 September 2021. In addition to the categories envisaged by the CCEI regulation, the mobile border crossing point category was added due to its strategic role in increasing the efficiency of customs controls by providing greater flexibility and unpredictability in the performance of the controls.}

MFF 2014-2020 – Internal Security Fund – Borders and Visa

The BMVI builds on the investment and achievements made with the support of its predecessors: the External Borders Fund and the ISF – Borders and Visa. The fund has supported overall EU policies in the area of external border management and visas.

Budget

Cumulative implementation rate at the end of 2022 (million EUR):

Performance assessment

• In 2022, the Commission continued to address the root causes of irregular migration and strengthen the protection of the EU’s external borders. The total number of detected irregular border crossings continued on the upward trend, growing to over 330 000, compared to 200 000 in 2021 and 125 000 in 2020. These are mostly explained by increases in the number of Syrians and Afghans apprehended within the western Balkan route and migrants from Egypt in the central Mediterranean route⁽¹⁾, but clearly highlight the increasing level of pressure on EU’s external borders.
• ISF – Borders and Visa is making a crucial contribution to the application of the Schengen acquis, with the investment in the effective control of the external border through the information systems at EU level and their interoperability, providing and sharing relevant information. The Fund has also contributed to the reinforcement of the capacities of Member States’ border management authorities. Special attention is still needed in the use of funds in the information systems area, to ensure that all available funding is absorbed, while taking into account the flexibility of the Commission’s proposal (adopted in April 2022) to prolong the implementation period for the funds still available to Member States under the 2014-2020 Home Affairs funds by one year due to the Russian war of aggression to Ukraine.
• In terms of overall performance of the Fund, many of the indicators set in the regulation have achieved their targets or are on track to do so by the end of the programming period⁽²⁾. The main difficulties reported over the last three reporting years relate to the possibility to carry out training activities and missions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of inflation especially with respect to the cost of travels, equipment and construction works, as well as the timing for the adoption of EU-level legal acts on large-scale IT systems. Such issues have been remedied in many cases by making use of the flexibility offered by the revision of the legal base to use unspent resources and extend the project duration, by exploiting the possibility to organise remote training and exchanges etc. However, in some cases projects had to be cancelled and re-programmed for the subsequent programming period. Whilst the easing of COVID-19 related restrictions implies that there is a positive trend in 2022, the effects of the pandemic remain visible on some aggregated cumulative figures. The Commission is also fully and actively engaged in supporting the agreement and finalisation of the the large-scale IT systems.
• On supporting a common visa policy, the trend shows that the cumulative values reported have been steadily increasing to achieve and in some cases overcome the targets, such as in the case of Consulates developed or upgraded. However, figures remain below the targets when it comes to training of staff in the area of visa and border management. Up to 2022, 7 051 people were trained in this area, which is approximately 62% of the target of 11 365. Training activities were among those most negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a decrease of people trained to 816 in 2020 compared to 1 196 in 2019 and only a marginal improvement to 908 in 2021. Whilst implementation picked up to 1530 in 2022, there could be a lasting effect on the cumulative figures. In any event, the low aggregated target achievement often hides important differences at the Member State level and is partly explained by a few Member States having set overly optimistic targets.
• On strengthening the EU external borders, progress is also positive but there is some variation across Member States and indicators. In this area, 41 355 border guards were trained by the end of 2022, achieving the target of 34 603. In total up to 2021, the instruments also supported the development or upgrade of 47 812 border control (checks and surveillance actions) infrastructure and means, which is well above the target of 19 902. However, the target for the number of crossings via the automatic border control gates supported by the fund remains unmet due to delays or changes in the needs in a few Member States.
• The main lessons learned during the 2014-2020 programming period are shown below.
  • There was insufficient cooperation, coordination and strategic steering in the implementation of the ISF with the other EU-level initiatives.
  • There is a need for better exploitation of innovation opportunities from EU civil security research.
  • There is a need to strengthen performance monitoring in terms of quality, reliability and frequency of the data and to set out common output and result indicators. This is being specifically addressed for the 2021-2027 programming by the new requirements contained in the legal basis and via the joint work of the Commission and national managing authorities on data quality.

^{(1) Increases in migrants apprehended are also due to the improved operational capacity of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency services and increases in the push-pull factors at the global level, including the progressive uplifting of restrictions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(2) The information coming from the Member States is not yet fully consolidated due the timing for the reporting cycle. The aggregated figures may also hide differences in performance at the Member State level. For person-related indicators, there could be instances of individual counted more than once.}

Contribution to the sustainable development goals