OREANDA-NEWS. November 10, 2015. The European Commission has awarded an amount of €16.43 million in emergency funding to Croatia to support the country in managing the high influx of migrants and improve the situation on the ground. The funding comes from the Internal Security Fund – Borders and Visa (ISF) and from the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) which make available €3.99 million and €12.43 million respectively.

Welcoming this decision, Commissioner Avramopoulos, in charge of Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, said: "With this decision, we continue to show our support to EU countries confronted with increasing asylum and migratory pressure. We are making €16.43 million available to the Croatian authorities to improve border management and deal with the high influx of third country nationals.

The funding will be used to finance measures, taken since 16 September, to increase the presence of police staff at the Croatian-Serbian border to improve management, as well to improve conditions in temporary accommodation centres.

The Commission's emergency funding comes on top of the regular AMIF and ISF funds which Croatia will soon receive for the implementation of their national programmes for the period 2014-2020. The national programmes are in the final stages of their negotiations and foresee a basic amount of respectively € 17.1 million and € 35.6 million.

Background

The European Commission has been consistently and continuously working for a coordinated European response on the refugees and migration front.

On 13 May 2015, the European Commission presented its European Agenda on Migration, setting out a comprehensive approach for improving the management of migration in all its aspects.

Two implementation packages under the Agenda, on 27 May 2015 and on 9 September 2015 have already been adopted and the measures therein are starting to be deployed.

The provision of emergency assistance under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund – Borders and Visa (ISF-B) is part of the Commission's overall efforts to implement the principle of solidarity through concrete and effective actions addressing urgent and specific needs of Member States facing high asylum and migratory pressure.