Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – The application of the criteria for the distribution of resources among the Member States under the External Borders Fund, the European Fund for the Integration of third-country nationals and the European Return Fund

For the period 2007-2013 the European Union established the General Programme Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows with a total allocation of €4 million.

The General Programme consists of four Funds and its aim is to address the issue of a fair share of the responsibilities between Member States as concerns the financial burden arising from the introduction of an integrated management of the Union's external borders and from the implementation of common policies on asylum and immigration.

The Funds are different from most other EU financial instruments in the sense that they establish a mechanism for allocating their resources to Member States on an annual basis.

For this reason the basic acts establishing the External Borders Fund, the European Fund on the Integration of third-country nationals ("Integration Fund") and the European Return Fund require the Commission to submit a report to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the application of the criteria for allocating resources to the Member States and to review whether amendments to these criteria are deemed necessary.

No such obligation exists for the European Refugee Fund, the fourth Fund of the General Programme. Having been established in 2000, the basic act consolidated past experiences, including those with the criteria.

This report presents the approach on the application of the criteria for the distribution of the resources while the accompanying staff working document outlines in detail the results for the Member States.

By presenting the data, the methodology used and the results of the application of the criteria, these documents may help inform the thinking of Member States, the other Institutions and stakeholders on the future of EU funding in the area of the management of migration flows under the next multi-annual financial framework.

EUR-Lex: COM(2011)448: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2011:448:FIN

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