Report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on implementation of the Schengen Facility (2004-2006)

The Schengen Facility was a temporary instrument aimed at helping beneficiary Member States to finance measures at the EU’s new external borders to implement the Schengen acquis and external border control. It covered the period 2004-2006 and had a total budget of €961,453,271.

The beneficiary Member States were seven of the countries that joined the European Union in 2004: Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia. The other three acceding countries did not participate in the Schengen Facility: the Czech Republic has no external land border, Malta covered the same policy areas through the Transition Facility and, at the time, Cyprus was not yet ready to start the evaluation process for joining the Schengen area.

The Schengen Facility helped beneficiaries to keep up their previous efforts and strategies to modernise their border management with a view to joining the Schengen area. It was established by Article 35 and Annex I of the Act of Accession and its final objective was to assist the country’s accession to the Schengen area.

The actual eligible costs under the Schengen Facility amounted to over 1 billion euros, with the EU co-financing 85.27% and the national governments co-financing 14.73% of the total. The range of EU funding varied from €53m for the Slovak Republic to €283m for Poland. The overall use of the EU contribution was 97.6%. All measures had to be carried out between 1 May 2004 and 30 September 2007. The deadline for effecting all payments was 31 December 2007.

The Schengen Facility focused on six categories of measures: border checks, border surveillance, visa management, IT systems, training, and management of the Schengen Facility.

This report is based on ex post evaluation reports provided by the seven Member States concerned by the Schengen Facility and the analysis of relevant background documents.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)115: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:115:FIN

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