European Refugee Fund 2008 - 13

The general objective of the European Refugee Fund (ERF) is to support and improve the efforts of Member States to grant reception conditions to refugees, displaced persons and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection, to apply fair and effective asylum procedures and to promote good practices in the field of asylum so as to protect the rights of persons requiring international protection and enable Member States asylum systems to work efficiently.

The new ERF will be applicable as of 1 January 2008. In light of the objectives and priorities of the Hague Programme regarding the development of the Common European Asylum System in its second phase, it introduces support for three new actions:

• Capacity building for the asylum systems of the Member States in general;
• The voluntary efforts of Member States to provide a durable solution in their territories to refugees and displaced persons identified as eligible for resettlement by the UNHCR
• The voluntary burden sharing between Member States consisting of the transfer of beneficiaries of international protection from one Member State to another, which grants them a similar protection.

This Fund will be part of the new General Programme ‘Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows’, and will support Member States in receiving, and in bearing the consequences of receiving, refugees and displaced persons. The majority of this cash will be spent at national level but there will be at least 10% available for transnational activities. All Member States participate, except Denmark.

There will be €628 million for the period 2008 – 2013 is divided as follows:

• €566 million distributed among the states on the basis of objective criteria relating to the number of asylum seekers and integrating persons benefiting from international protection (refugees, persons benefiting from subsidiary protection)('solidarity');
• €62 million (10% of the total annual resources each year) for Community actions, with a particular emphasis on supporting practical cooperation between Member States. (Transnational Activities)

Strategic guidelines for the programme are scheduled to be published by late July 2007 and each Member State will then respond. As the programme develops calls will be made and these will be advertised as and when they happen on Grant Tracker.

For more details please visit:

http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/funding/refugee/funding_refugee_en.htm

Further Information.

The Home Office, and its new Border & Immigration Agency, plans to implement a new National Refugee Integration Service from April 2008. Details of the proposals and responses to a consultation are available at www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/lawandpolicy/refugeeintegration/Nationalrefugeenextsteps

In 2006 the Home Office published an evaluation report into the effectiveness of projects that had been funded by the Refugee Fund and associated programmes in recent years. A copy is available at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/rdsolr2206.pdf