13.9.2012   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 277/23

—

welcomes the step to achieve a genuine area of freedom, security and justice through budgetary proposals recognising the importance of providing the necessary resources for the immigration, asylum and security budget;

—

affirms the importance of the proposed changes for Local and Regional Authorities (LRA), having a direct impact on their duties and on the everyday life of people living in the European Union;

—

stresses the importance of responding to security concerns, arising from an increased global mobility, within the context of the universal protection of fundamental rights and freedoms;

—

welcomes the focus on flexibility and achieving results, highlighting that this requires good planning as well as participation and ownership and by all stakeholders. Therefore stresses the need to involve LRAs as well as other stakeholders such as specialised international organisations, civil society and the beneficiaries themselves from the planning stage, since they often implement the programmes and projects;

—

believes that access to funding is vastly improved through the proposed reforms. However, it encourages further development of mechanisms to distribute information on funding opportunities. In larger countries, LRAs could be used to organise regional and local consultations to allow participation of those organisations and stakeholders which operate further away from the main cities.

Rapporteur

Samuel AZZOPARDI (MT/EPP) Mayor of Victoria, Gozo

Reference documents

1.

welcomes the step to achieve a genuine area of freedom, security and justice through budgetary proposals recognising the importance of providing the necessary resources for the immigration, asylum and security budget (1);

2.

supports the simplification of the existing instruments, merging them into 2 funds;

3.

affirms the importance of the proposed changes for Local and Regional Authorities (LRA), having a direct impact on their duties and on the everyday life of people living in the European Union;

4.

stresses the importance of responding to security concerns, arising from an increased global mobility, within the context of the universal protection of fundamental rights and freedoms;

5.

underlines that this can be achieved through the implementation of coherent instruments in the field of freedom, security and justice based on respect for human rights, solidarity and responsibility with particular attention given to gender equality and non-discrimination (2);

6.

believes that a balance is needed between the security and border related parts of the expenditure, and expenditure in areas such as integration of migrants and reception conditions for asylum seekers;

7.

supports the creation of a needs-based budget that helps to develop synergies between EU financial instruments, notably between the structural funds and funds in the area of home affairs. The Union budget should attribute adequate resources to the area of home affairs, both through the structural funds and through specialised instruments within the area of freedom, security and justice;

8.

points out that the repeal of Council Decision 2007/125/JHA, which takes away the possibility of making complementary use of other Union and Community instruments, significantly restricts the desired flexibility in the use of financial instruments and threatens the seamless continuation of cross-border regional projects in the field of internal security that have previously been funded via ERDF-based objective 3 support; therefore advocates retaining complementarity between Community instruments;

9.

points out that a certain degree of flexibility is needed in the operation of the budget and financial instruments, making a genuine midterm revision possible in accordance with the political priorities identified, whilst stressing that such flexibility must be developed to co-exist with the fair allocation of resources;

10.

welcomes an immigration policy starting in countries of origin and taking account of European labour market needs and demographic change, leading to a system which is beneficial to all parties, including countries of origin so often benefiting from remittances from the EU (3);

11.

emphasises the necessity for strong cooperation at EU level to achieve better coordination between Members States on managing the Union’s external borders, as well as moving towards a Common European Asylum System;

12.

stresses the need for transparency in the use of the budget with proposals, projects and results achieved visible and easily accessible to and understandable for the ordinary citizen;

13.

welcomes the focus on flexibility and achieving results, highlighting that this requires good planning as well as participation and ownership and by all stakeholders. Therefore stresses the need to involve LRAs as well as other stakeholders such as specialised international organisations, civil society and the beneficiaries themselves from the planning stage, since they often implement the programmes and projects;

14.

highlights the need for independent monitoring and evaluation to ensure efficient use of funds and strong management by implementing organisations. This may be an incentive for improving institutional performance. Qualitative as well as quantitative indicators must be selected in a participatory way by all stakeholders. The Committee points out that certain qualitative indicators can be efficient and cost effective. The Committee also calls for a strengthened European Commission and Parliament oversight of the Funds to help bring about the independent element of monitoring and evaluation;

15.

believes that access to funding is vastly improved through the proposed reforms. However, it encourages further development of mechanisms to distribute information on funding opportunities. In larger countries, LRAs could be used to organise regional and local consultations to allow participation of those organisations and stakeholders which operate further away from the main cities;

16.

points out that with the positive aspects of simplification and flexibility, the proposed reforms also bring uncertainty regarding allocation of resources between different sectors and thematic issues. It therefore stresses the importance for funds to be allocated on a needs-basis through a thorough needs-analysis with prioritisation following a rights-based approach. This can be achieved through mechanisms and safeguards put in place to ensure efficient prioritisation, including LRA and other stakeholders’ participation when drawing up national strategies;

17.

highlights the need to distribute funds evenly according to institutional capacity and project proposals and not to focus the funds on just a few recipients;

18.

in case of insufficient funds, believes that funds aimed at protecting people’s fundamental rights and freedoms, including those dealing with basic living standards, gender specific issues and the right to asylum, should be prioritised, together with resources for capacity building of LRAs to manage migration flows;

19.

stresses the importance of a participatory approach in achieving effective results, and supports proposals that oblige the Member States to organise partnerships with all public authorities concerned and with relevant stakeholders, including civil society and international organisations, for the development, implementation and monitoring of the national programmes;

20.

therefore it urges that partnership of stakeholders is strengthened and made mandatory. It points out that currently, the principle in the Draft Regulation laying down the general provisions (4) might not bring about participation in a sufficiently binding manner. Whilst coordination mechanisms are bound, in other areas there is a lot of discretion as to whether a meaningful partnership will actually take place or not;

21.

suggests that it may not be appropriate to nominate a single Responsible Authority for all actions supported by the funds, despite the simplification that this may bring with it. Transparency and the checks and balances must be in place to ensure fairness in decisions. It is concerned that there may be legal issues that do not allow a delegated authority to work under the supervision of the national Responsible Authority and therefore suggests that regulations should be flexible enough to cater for all national rules in place in the EU and must not force the Member States to change their constitutional structures if the objectives can just as well be achieved in a partnership approach;

22.

welcomes steps towards a ‘Common European Asylum System’ whilst stressing that it must aim to achieve the standards of those with better systems and structures and not lead to a general reduction in quality in line with those with less strong systems;

23.

would like to see greater clarity as to whether EASO will only use the funds directly allocated to it or whether it will also be able to access the Home Affairs Funds;

24.

notes with approval the acknowledgment of the importance of LRAs in the reception and asylum systems as well as in the integration of third-country nationals and legal migrants;

25.

praises the idea of focusing on the most vulnerable, including victims of trafficking;

26.

highlights that integration must focus on long-term sustainable actions, keeping in mind that integration is a two-way process where actions can be targeted towards host and migrant communities;

27.

suggests that the Home Affairs Funds should also support actions recommended by the European Commission, recognising the multilevel governance approach in the 2nd European Agenda for Integration (5);

28.

points out that administrative detention practices around the EU have been under scrutiny by the ECHR and human rights authorities and stresses that funding of projects linked to detaining people must ensure that such detention is in line with EU law and ECHR decisions;

29.

stresses that family members benefitting from international protection in different Member States should be allowed to live together and benefit from protection in the same Member State;

30.

emphasises that Europe's border regions must receive more adequate support with regards to asylum and migration, especially in times of particular difficulty (6);

31.

stresses that criteria and mechanisms for relocation must be of a non-discriminatory nature and focus on the most vulnerable, whilst also keeping in mind EU labour market considerations, particularly for persons currently stuck in areas where access to the labour market is limited. They should not focus on prioritising those highly skilled and already integrated into the host society;

32.

points out that LRAs are in good position to participate in establishing such mechanisms (7);

33.

is of the view that solidarity in supporting burdened countries should be conditional on human rights records and respect for EU reception standards, thus providing incentives for improvement;

34.

welcomes the establishing of an EU resettlement programme and encourages the creation of a clear framework to be developed by a partnership between EASO, UNHCR and NGOs, keeping in mind the best practices in other parts of the world. The EU should lead by example, seeking to identify and provide protection to those most forgotten by the international community;

35.

highlights the need for incentives and information on benefits to increase the number of places pledged by Member States for resettlement;

36.

stresses the need to maintain a clear distinction between resettlement from third countries and intra-EU relocation, as well as the number of persons allocated for these two programmes;

37.

reaffirms that programmes should, as a matter of principle, be operated on a purely voluntary basis and in line with the goals of development cooperation, resulting in the long-term social integration of the people concerned (8). Return must be viable and ensure that no new migration project is initiated (9). This could be achieved through partnerships with a specialised international organisation such as IOM;

38.

points out that successful return strategies cannot be sufficiently measured with the purely quantitative indicator of the number of returnees. The indicator could be chosen as the number of returnees in relation to the number of cases and taking into account long-term quality factors;

39.

highlights its own indispensable involvement in the process of improving Europe's internal security together with the need for capacity building of LRAs;

40.

stresses that ISF funding must keep in mind the necessity to invest in further research and to carry out innovations and sharing of expertise in fields such as cyber security, forensics, the protection of vital infrastructure and urban security and that the European Commission promotes this in line with the increased need to address ever more specific and complex problems;

41.

reaffirms the importance of LRA involvement for police and security cooperation which can occur through training, sharing of best practices and prevention programmes as well as through the development of common tools and IT systems as well as better communication;

42.

recommends that current local and regional authority networks are strengthened and used in each Member State, or if the need arises new ones are set up, to facilitate the exchange of good practice in relation to social integration, professional learning and understanding of violent extremism growing out of local districts and neighbourhoods. This could support the work undertaken through the recently created European anti-radicalisation network;

43.

suggests that funding under the ISF includes public consultation at a local level in Member States and reaching out to those who feel disconnected from society. This can help to establish a multifaceted understanding of local experiences and concepts of terrorism and motivations towards extremism;

44.

highlights the importance of increased scrutiny of bank and business practices to identify and target the finances of terrorism and organised crime through money laundering and coupling of criminal activities with businesses with a legitimate aim;

45.

equally recalls the importance of the confiscation of criminal assets, which is indubitably an important avenue for combating any kind of crime right across the board, and therefore welcomes the fact that the European Commission has proposed legislation to strengthen the EU legal framework on confiscation (10);

46.

points out that whilst public-private partnerships could have positive impacts, privatisation of security should be avoided;

47.

emphasises the need to fund border control adequately (11). Simultaneously considers that, in view of tackling irregular migration, it is questionable whether investing heavily on border control is the most effective and efficient way to bring about long term and meaningful change;

48.

highlights the need for independent monitoring of border actions by an organisation such as UNHCR to ensure that fundamental human rights, including gender sensitivity, are being respected;

49.

stresses that consideration for human lives should take precedence over all other issues and calls for more collaboration and sharing of responsibilities amongst Member States of rescued people to provide incentives to rescue. It feels that automatic responsibility sharing could help save more lives at sea;

50.

welcomes changes aimed at increasing the speed of response to emergency situations;

51.

urges the Commission to commit itself to the planning and development of cross-border operations that involve the active participation of border regions. This would enable regions to pool their experience in civil protection and provide a solid operational base on which to build a European emergency response force;

52.

calls on the Commission to take on a role of increased direct management in emergency situations to maintain a level of over-sight and help with cross-border coordination;

53.

encourages Member States to set up multi-disciplinary teams for rapid emergency response, especially when the emergency situation has elements such as mixed flows of migration where expertise in asylum law and human rights are essential;

54.

points out that some emergencies may be longer term situations and that funds for emergencies must be available as long as the emergency lasts;

55.

welcomes a more coherent approach to the internal and external aspects of migration management and internal security, pointing out that cooperation and dialogue with third countries are necessary to both deal with irregular immigration and focus on legal migration;

56.

points out that local and regional authorities that are closest to or have the strongest links with third countries can provide the vital links for EU cooperation with those countries, making a substantial contribution to improving relations and living conditions in cities and regions of origin and transit (12). Through its cooperation with local and regional authorities in enlargement and neighbourhood countries (e.g. Working Groups and Joint Consultative Committees, CORLEAP, ARLEM), the CoR is well placed to promote the objectives of the funds beyond the EU borders;

57.

does not see a clear line between development and non-development activities with regards to third countries and calls for coherence and coordination between aid and development funded projects and home affairs projects, driven through a spirit of solidarity and responsibility sharing with third countries;

58.

calls for safeguards to prevent Members States from pursuing their own national interests through the external aspect of the Home Affairs Funds as well as for mechanisms to ensure transparency in bilateral cooperation between Member States and third countries.