31/3/2006
Asylum, immigration and external borders: 21 new ARGO projects

The Commission announced this week that grants were awarded to 21 projects in 2005 under its ARGO programme (2002-2006). ARGO, an action programme for administrative cooperation in the fields of external borders, visas, asylum and immigration, supports projects for cooperation between national administrations, to encourage and promote collaboration on specific matters and the improvement of practices and legislation. Since 2002, ARGO grants have totalled €20.75 million, going to the authorities in 23 Member States (Ireland and Denmark are not taking part in the programme). In 2005 grants were awarded to 21 projects (including 2 projects that are part of a mini-programme to address the problems caused by illegal sea-borne immigration in the Mediterranean) for around €5.15 million. In addition to the EU Member States, other countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine, Albania, Tunisia, Libya, Norway and Switzerland have taken part in some of the projects.

“Since 2002, through the ARGO Programme, the national authorities and officials of the Member States have become acquainted with each other and shared their experience”, said Franco Frattini, Vice-President of the Commission, in charge of justice, freedom and security matters, adding: “Thanks to ARGO, it has been possible to carry out joint control operations at land, sea or air borders. For instance, the Commission has just awarded Spain a grant to step up maritime surveillance in its efforts to prevent sea-borne illegal immigration, in particular from Mauritania. Some projects were even behind the creation of FRONTEX, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at External Borders. ARGO is a good example of the need to provide practical tools for cooperation whenever policies or legislation are harmonised.”

ARGO has co-financed a variety of projects. For instance:

joint actions at the EU’s external land, air and sea borders, involving the border guards of a number of Members States and neighbouring third countries. A total of €7.5 million was provided for 16 joint actions that served to identify the tasks of the Frontex agency;

the development of common reference frameworks for handling asylum requests from certain third countries;

experiments in issuing and controlling biometric visas. This is part of the European VIS project, and is accompanied by strengthened consular cooperation and the insertion of biometrics in Schengen visas;

integrated regional intervention to improve reception conditions for illegal immigrants in the Aegean;

actions in the network of heads of Member States’ immigration services, comprising actions in the fields of asylum, immigration management, illegal immigration and the organisation of immigration services. These actions should lead to enhanced cooperation and communication between the services in question.

The ARGO programme, the list of projects co-financed by ARGO and the calls for proposals can be found at:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/funding/argo/funding_argo_en.htm