What is the European Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF)?
English version below —
The Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) is the EU's main financial instrument to support the implementation of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), refugee integration, return and resettlement and humanitarian reception. The fund for the 2021-2027 EU budget has long been under negotiation between co-legislators. Last week, the Parliament and the Council, together with the Commission, which will be crucial for the management of the funds, finally reached a political agreement.
In this negotiation, the main issue for Parliament was to balance the particularly emphasised flexibility of the Commission proposal and the Council mandate to ensure that Member States invest adequately in solidarity (resettlement from third countries, resettlement within the EU), integration, legal migration and the Common European Asylum System. By introducing a list of specific objectives and linking them to a certain percentage of the fund, implementation will be more transparent and more in line with the principles of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibilities. It was also Parliament's aim to ensure the inward-looking focus of the Fund, especially as a significant part of the external financing instrument has already been allocated to external migration policy. As shadow rapporteur for the Greens, my responsibility lay precisely in this complementarity, as I am also closely following the external financing instrument of the next budget.
I think it is an important change in the AMIF proposal that a larger part of the fund will be managed directly by the Commission rather than in shared management with the Member States, so that European added value and Union priorities can be incorporated into the projects supported by the fund. This so-called thematic pillar also means that the co-legislators had to find a balanced approach to commit the Commission while allowing for flexible allocation in case of unforeseen events. 20% of the thematic directly managed pillar (1/3 of the instrument) will support the principle of solidarity successfully reintroduced by Parliament, which ensures that the Commission has the incentive to motivate Member States to carry out resettlements from other EU countries, complete resettlements and humanitarian admissions from third countries. Other 5%s in the pillar will directly support regional and local authorities in their integration programmes, which is significant as they do important work to ensure refugees are supported, sometimes despite the views of their governments to the contrary. Parliament managed to introduce spending targets for the rest of the fund, which supports national programmes managed by member states and the Commission, amid concerns that the role of returns was being overestimated and little money was being spent on other aspects of the CEAS, integration or legal migration. Although it has not been possible to keep legal migration as a separate objective together with integration, member states are required to spend at least 15% of their allocated budget on these two priorities. Another 15 % should be spent on the implementation of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), where much work remains to be done and more will come once the reform of the CEAS is completed. The most contentious issue was the use of the fund in relation to third countries, where Parliament and the Council asked the Commission for clarity on what counts as external expenditure. Due to the transnational nature of migration and the different political motivations of the co-legislators, Parliament's original plan to limit the percentage that the fund can allocate outside the EU failed. However, safeguards could be agreed for both the thematic pillar and national programmes, as well as a clearly defined list of priorities on which to spend. These are intended to provide a cap on money spent outside the EU. Since the so-called refugee crisis in 2015, there has been an increasing externalisation in the EU due to a failure of internal solidarity and the positioning of migration as a security issue. This has led to projects from external and internal EU funds aiming to reduce the number of arrivals instead of investing in legal migration, quality integration support and promoting solidarity among EU member states.
Despite the general impression that the EU's approach to asylum policy is not going in the right direction, the negotiations on this fund were concluded in constructive cooperation, in the hope that implementation from 2021 onwards will be in the same spirit.
What is AMIF?
The Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) is the EU’s primary funding instrument to support the implementation of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), integration of refugees, returns as well as resettlement and humanitarian admission. The fund for the 2021-2027 EU budget has been in negotiation between the co-legislators for a long time and last week the Parliament and the Council, together with the Commission who will be crucial in managing the money, finally reached a political agreement.
This negotiation for the Parliament has been largely about counter-balancing the over-emphasised flexibility of the Commission proposal and Council mandate to ensure that member states invest properly into solidarity (resettlement from third countries, relocation within the EU), integration, legal migration and the CEAS. By introducing a list of specific objectives and linking them to a certain percentage of the fund, the implementation will be more transparent and more in line with principles of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility. It was also the aim of the Parliament to ensure the internal facing focus of the fund, especially since a significant portion of the external funding instrument has already been allocated for external migration policy. As shadow rapporteur for the Greens, I felt my responsibility lies in this very complementarity as I also follow the external funding instrument of the next budget closely.
I think it is an important change in the proposal of the AMIF to have a bigger portion of the fund managed directly by the Commission rather than in shared management with the member states, which allows for EU added value and priorities of the Union to make their way into the projects supported by the fund. This so-called thematic pillar also means that the co-legislators had to find a balanced approach to tie the Commission while allowing flexible allocation in case of unforeseen events. 20% of the thematic, directly managed pillar (1/3rd of the instrument) will support the by Parliament successfully re-introduced principle of solidarity, ensuring that the Commission has the incentive to motivate member states to relocate from other EU countries, complete resettlements and humanitarian admissions from third countries. Another 5% of the pillar will directly support regional and local authorities in their integration programs, which is important as they do crucial work to ensure the support of refugees while sometimes the central governments have different views on the topic. The Parliament managed to introduce spending targets into the rest of the fund that supports national programmes managed by member states and the Commission, where the fear was an overestimated role for returns with little money spent on other aspects of the CEAS, integration or legal migration. Even though we did not manage to keep legal migration as a separate objective, together with integration, member states are bound to spend at least 15% of their allocated budget on the two priorities. Another 15% should be spent on the implementation of the CEAS, where a lot of work is to be done and even more will come if the reform of the CEAS is completed. The most contested issue was the fund’s relation to third countries where the Parliament and the Council asked the Commission for clarity in what counts as external expenditure. Due to the cross-country nature of migration and the differing political motivations of the co-legislators, the original plan of the Parliament to cap the percentage the fund can allocate outside the EU failed. Still, safeguards for both thematic pillar and the national programmes, as well as a clearly defined list of priorities to spend on hopefully puts a limit to the money for action in third countries. . Since the so-called refugee crisis in 2015, the EU has been externalizing due to a failure of internal solidarity and positioning the topic of migration as a security issue. This has led to projects from external and internal EU funds to aim at lowering the number of arrivals rather than investing into legal migration, quality integration support and incentivizing solidarity among EU member states.
Despite the general feeling that the EU’s approach to asylum policy has not been the right direction, the negotiations of this fund have been concluded in constructive cooperation, hoping that the implementation will happen in the same spirit.