Hungary made efficient use of the funding granted by the Schengen Fund – internal borders will be removed within days – new Schengen external borders13 December 2007
The National Development Agency held a press conference on 13 December 2007 bearing the title 2007 „internal borders will be removed within days – new Schengen external borders”. The countries of the united Europe will counterbalance the elimination of internal border controls by strengthening border security along the external borders of the EU. This is why, pursuant to Article 35 of the Accession Treaty, the European Union set up the so-called Schengen Fund for the countries that acceded to the European Union in 2004. This transitional fund provided financial assistance to the concerned countries between 2004 and 2006, in order to ensure the validation of the Schengen acquis and regulations defined in connection with external border control along the external borders of the EU.
Four priorities were defined during the course of preparation for the Schengen Fund, namely: developments in connection with the protection of external borders, improving the efficiency of in depth control, increasing the data provision capacities of law enforcement bodies and improving the capacity and ability to cooperate in international criminal matters.
The Accession Treaty ensured a total of 165.8 million Euros for Hungary over a three-year period for financing investments, acquisitions, institutional building and training in connection with joining the Schengen zone. These activities could be implemented up to the end of September.
The authorities called Intermediate Bodies of the Schengen Fund – which bodies are equally responsible for the professional implementation of the developments – namely, the Ministry of Justice and Law Enforcement, the Hungarian Customs and Finance Guard and the Ministry of Economy and Transport, are the main beneficiaries of the funding (as well as the Transport Development Coordination Centre – Transport Development Integrated Intermediate Body as of 1 January 2007).
The Ministry of Justice and Law Enforcement spent 35 billion HUF in gross funds, the Hungarian Customs and Finance Guard spent 7.3 billion HUF, the Ministry of Economy and Transport spent 3.2 billion HUF, the Central Office for Administrative and Electronic Public Services spent 4.5 billion HUF and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent 1 billion HUF on the implementation of the objectives of the Schengen Fund.
During the course of the use of funding, the National Development Agency assumes the role of the so-called Responsible Authority, and is therefore responsible for the full-scope implementation of tasks financed by the Schengen Fund. During the course of implementation, the main tasks of the Responsible Authority include, among others, managing relations with the European Commission, verifying compliance with rules stipulated in connection with the use of funding granted by the Fund and operating the monitoring system. The Central Finance and Contracting Unit undertook, among others, the task of implementing public procurement procedures and contracting, in addition to ensuring the regularity of the receipt, transfer and payment of funding granted by the Fund.
Developments implemented by the Ministry of Justice and Law Enforcement are extremely complex. Funding granted by the Schengen Fund ensured coverage for a variety of measures ranging from building investments connecting to border custody through to the acquisition of special equipment and complex IT developments. Owing to the acquisition of equipment, the special technical background of border control, the car fleet ensuring mobility and the technical conditions of radio-communication were further developed. All this contributed to establishing European standard border control and border traffic control, in addition to implementing the integrated border guard force. The consolidation of databases was implemented as a result of IT equipment and application developments. In addition, data exchange that complies with Schengen requirements, as well as simpler and faster administration of aliens was also made possible. Furthermore, the objective of IT developments also pertains to ensuring the technical requirements needed for connecting to the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II). A series of border control and border guard facilities, as well as facilities used by the Office of Immigration and Nationality for the control of aliens were refurbished as a result of the building investments. The professional training of officers considerably helped Hungary adapt to EU practice.
The majority of resources available to the Hungarian Customs and Finance Guard were spent on reinforcing border control. The development of border crossings, setting up the security camera surveillance systems, as well as the acquisition of equipment needed for combating drug and arms trafficking was carried out within this framework. In addition, a substantial amount of the funding was used for improving the efficiency of in depth control.
The Ministry of and Transport implemented two individual investments (namely, construction of the river border crossing point at Mohács and the modernisation of the railway border crossing at Eperjeske) in order to strengthen border control at external borders, in addition to acquiring equipment for organisations undertaking border control related tasks.
To summarise, it is plausible to state that the financial resources ensured by the European Union decisively contributed to Hungary’s successful preparation for joining the Schengen zone.