EUROPEAN COMMISSION Brussels, 12.6.2018 SWD(2018) 341 final COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Interim Evaluation of the Internal Security Fund - Police Accompanying the document Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on interim evaluation of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and the Internal Security Fund {COM(2018) 464 final}

{SWD(2018) 339 final}

{SWD(2018) 340 final}





Table of contents Table of contents Abbreviations Executive summary 1Introduction 2Background to the intervention 2.1Baseline 2.2Description of ISF-P and its objectives 3Implementation / state of play 3.1Description of the implementation process 3.2Description of the implementation status 4Method 4.1Short description of methodology 4.2Evaluation questions 4.3Limitations and robustness of findings

5Analysis and answers to the evaluation questions 5.1How effective has ISF-P been so far? 5.2How efficient has ISF-P been so far? 5.3How much simplification and reduction of administrative burden has ISF-P brought so far? 5.4How relevant has ISF-P been so far? 5.5How coherent and complementary has ISF-P been so far? 5.6What is the EU added value of ISF-P so far? 5.7How sustainable are the actions implemented under ISF-P so far? 6Conclusions and issues for further consideration 6.1Effectiveness 6.2Efficiency 6.3Simplification and reduction of administrative burden 6.4Relevance 6.5Coherence and complementarity 6.6EU Added Value 6.7Sustainability Annex 1: Procedural information Annex 2: Methods and Analytical methods Annex 3: Stakeholder consultation Annex 4: Evaluation questions

Annex 5: Cost/benefit analysis Annex 6: Examples of projects used to answer the evaluation questions



Abbreviations AMIF Asylum Migration and Integration Fund CBRN-E Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear explosives CIPS Specific programme Prevention, Preparedness and Consequence Management of Terrorism and Other Security-related Risks DG CONNECT DG Communications Networks, Content & Technology DG HOME Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs DG JUST DG Justice and Consumers DG TAXUD DG Taxation and Customs Union EBCGA European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) EBF External Borders Fund EMAS Emergency assistance ERF European Refugee Fund EU European Union eu-LISA European Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice Eurostat Statistical office of the European Union ESIF European Structural and Investment Funds ESF European Social Fund FTE Full-time equivalent ISEC Specific programme Prevention of and Fight against Organised Crime ISF Internal Security Fund ISF-BV ISF Borders and Visa ISF-P ISF Police MFF Multiannual financial framework NP National programme PNR Passenger Name Record RAN Radicalisation Awareness Network RF European Return Fund SAC Schengen associated countries SOLID General programme Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows SFC2014 Shared Fund Management Common System of DG HOME SLTD Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database SSL Security and safeguarding liberties programme VIS Visa Information System AT Austria BE Belgium BG Bulgaria CH Switzerland CY Cyprus CZ Czech Republic DE Germany DK Denmark EE Estonia EL Greece ES Spain FI Finland FR France HR Croatia HU Hungary IS Iceland IT Italy LI Lichtenstein LT Lithuania LU Luxembourg LV Latvia MT Malta NL Netherlands NO Norway PL Poland PT Portugal RO Romania SE Sweden SI Slovenia SK Slovakia UK United Kingdom Executive summary This staff working document presents the interim evaluation of the instrument for police cooperation, preventing and combating crime, and crisis management which is part of the Internal Security Fund for the programming period 2014-2020, specifically covering the period running from January 2014 until the end of June 2017 (it is referred to as ‘ISF-P’, or ‘the Fund’ throughout this document). ISF-P was designed to help ensure a high level of security in the EU. The evaluation assesses ISF-P’s progress towards meeting its objectives. The findings will: ·inform the legislators and all relevant stakeholders of its achievements so far; ·provide the evidence base for the Member States and the Commission to address any weaknesses and to take corrective measures to minimise their impact; and ·inform the design of the future funds. The total resources needed to implement ISF-P were initially estimated at EUR 1 004 million divided into two parts: (i) EUR 662 million or 66 % to be managed by Member States under the framework of multiannual national programmes and (ii) EUR 342 million or 34 %, managed by the Commission under Union actions and emergency assistance. An interim evaluation, taking place only a few years after the funding period started, has obvious limitations. In addition, the migration and security crisis has had a major impact on the home affairs policy area and thus also on all the funds, not only ISF-P.

Nevertheless, looking at the Fund’s effectiveness, early evidence at this stage of implementation shows that progress is being made towards fulfilling the different levels of ISF-P’s objectives. The Fund has helped strengthen Member States’ capabilities to combat cross-border, serious and organised crime, including terrorism and to strengthen their mutual cooperation as well as improving Member States’ capacity to effectively manage security-related risks and crises. In terms of efficiency, the results of the Fund have been achieved at a reasonable cost in terms of both human and financial resources deployed, the effective management and control systems in place that ensured the Fund was correctly implemented, and effective measures that prevented irregularities from occurring. The perceived administrative burden appears to be the main factor undermining efficiency. However, assessing the part of Fund implemented by the Member States against the criterion of simplification and reduction of administrative burden has been complex as the previous funds (ISEC and CIPS) were fully implemented under a direct management mode. This evaluation finds that the ISF-P’s original rational for intervention and its objectives are still relevant, also in light of the changing political priorities that have made security issues a major concern. The broad scope and flexibility offered by the Fund helped to address the changing needs and thus helped to ensure its relevance. Coherence and complementarity between ISF-P and other relevant EU and national instruments (ISF Borders and Visa and AMIF (Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund), and also the justice programme, Hercule III, Horizon 2020) was ensured at the programming stage and followed-up during the Fund’s implementation. The different funding modes of ISF-P were also found to be coherent and complementary to each other. Cooperation with relevant EU agencies, especially Europol and CEPOL (the EU agency for law enforcement training) is crucial. The Fund has ensured EU added value in terms of improving cross-border cooperation, exchanging of knowledge and best practices, and mutual trust amongst Member States’ law enforcement authorities. It also ensured EU added value when key EU policies were being applied and implemented. Furthermore, it has helped to broaden the scope in terms of investments in under-prioritised or highly specialised policy areas. The sustainability of effects is considered a common feature of most ISF-P funded projects as the actions are usually aligned with and complementary to national priorities and EU requirements. Therefore, these projects are generally planned with a view to remaining operational beyond the Fund’s support. In addition, a wide range of measures to ensure sustainability of project results have been put in place. Nevertheless, there is always room for improvement and for lessons to be learned. For example, the monitoring and evaluation framework itself should be developed to further address (i) issues such as baseline values, definition of indicators, and synchronisation of calendars, (ii) matters linked to efficiency of the Fund and flexibility and (iii) perceived administrative burden.



1Introduction This Commission staff working document presents the interim evaluation of the Internal Security Fund, the instrument for police cooperation, preventing and combating crime, and crisis management (ISF-P) in line with Article 57(2) of Regulation (EU) No 514/2014, the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/207 and the Better Regulation guidelines. Member States submitted to the Commission an interim evaluation report on the implementation of actions and progress towards achieving the objectives of their national programmes by 31 December 2017. On the basis of these reports, the Commission has to submit an interim evaluation report on the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 513/2014, Regulation (EU) No 514/2014 and Regulation (EU) No 515/2014 to the European Parliament, to the Council, to the European Economic and Social Committee and to the Committee of the Regions by 30 June 2018. The purpose of this evaluation is to: 1) ensure transparency and accountability in the ISF’s implementation, the general objective of which is to ensure a high level of security within an area of freedom, security and justice; and

2) help make the future implementation of EU instruments in the fields covered by ISF more relevant, effective, efficient, and sustainable, and enable them to provide EU added value and simplification measures and reduce administrative burden. This evaluation has looked at the progress made in implementing the programme, and assessed whether corrective actions are needed to make sure that the programme delivers as planned. It also contributes to the preparation of the next generation of funding instruments (the successors of ISF-P), under the post-2020 multi-annual financial framework (MFF). This evaluation covers the whole ISF-P programme in all EU Member States, except Denmark and the United Kingdom, which do not participate in the ISF-P. The evaluation covers the period from 1 January 2014 until 30 June 2017 and it looks into the national programmes, Union actions and emergency assistance financed under ISF-P.

2Background to the intervention 2.1Baseline Ensuring a high level of freedom and security within Europe has been at the top of the EU policy agenda since the Tampere Council Conclusions in 1999. Policies such as migration, security and management of the external borders became a strategic priority at EU level, through the priorities set by The Hague programme and the Stockholm programme and its action plan. Art. 67 TFEU defines one of the EU’s overarching objectives: offering European citizens ‘an area of freedom, security and justice with respect for fundamental rights and the different legal systems and traditions of the Member States’ as well as ‘ensure a high level of security through measures to prevent and combat crime, racism and xenophobia, and through measures for coordination and cooperation between police and judicial authorities and other competent authorities’. In the field of internal security, the Commission’s communication on the internal security strategy in action (ISS), adopted in 2010, identified clear strategic goals and provided a basis for concerted action to address common security challenges in the years to come. Through cooperation and solidarity at EU level and with non-EU countries, substantial progress has been made towards creating a more open and secure Europe. Strategic objectives included: disrupt serious and organised crime networks; prevent terrorism and address radicalisation and recruitment; raise levels of security for citizens and businesses in cyberspace; increase Europe's resilience to crises and disasters Within this context, the programme ‘Security and Safeguarding Liberties’ was put in place for the period 2007-2013 (almost EUR 800 million) and built up of two separate financial instruments following the different legal bases provided in the Treaties: (i) Specific programme Prevention of and Fight against Organised Crime (ISEC) and (ii) Specific programme Prevention, Preparedness and Consequence Management of Terrorism and Other Security-related Risks (CIPS). The security and safeguarding liberties (SSL) general programme and its specific programmes included the following general objectives: §contribute to protecting citizens, their liberties and society against terrorist attacks and related incidents, and to safeguard the EU as an area of freedom, security and justice (SSL); §contribute to developing other EU policies such as police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, protection of the environment, public health, transport, research and technological development and economic and social cohesion (SSL); §contribute to supporting Member States efforts to prevent, prepare for, and protect people and critical infrastructure against terrorist attacks and other security-related incidents (CIPS); §contribute to ensuring protection in areas such as the crisis management, environment, public health, transport, research and technological development and economic and social cohesion, and in the field of terrorism and other security-related risks within the area of freedom, security and justice (CIPS); §contribute to a high level of security for citizens by preventing and combating crime, organised or otherwise, in particular terrorism, human trafficking and offences against children, illicit drug trafficking and illicit arms trafficking, corruption and fraud (ISEC); §contribute to developing EU policies, by focusing on four themes: crime prevention and criminology, law enforcement, protection and support to witnesses, and protection of victims (ISEC). The two funding programmes were implemented under direct management only, by means of Community actions. Moreover, to ensure fair responsibility-sharing towards common migration and asylum policies and borders management, the EU provided financial support to strengthen (i) legal migration and integration, (ii) asylum, (iii) irregular migration and return, and (iv) management of the external borders and visa policy, as well as the external dimension of these policies. In light of this, under the 2007-2013 programming period, the General programme Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows (SOLID) was put in place, with a total contribution of almost EUR 4 billion. The SOLID programme’s legal base has been built up of four separated financial instruments: (i) the European Refugee Fund (ERF), (ii) the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals (EIF), (iii) the European Return Fund (RF) and (iv) the External Borders Fund (EBF).

CIPS and ISEC, together with the SOLID programme, were replaced by AMIF and the Internal Security Funds (ISF Borders and Visa and ISF Police) in April 2014. The main reason for creating the two-pillar structure was to contribute to the simplification, rationalisation, consolidation and transparency of funding in the fields of internal security. The table below shows the development (in size and scope) of funds in the home affairs area, how they evolved over time, leading up to the development of the current generation of funds, namely AMIF and ISF. General Programme Policy area Fund / Specific Programme Budget, Participation & Objectives Previous Funds (2007-2013) Curent Funds (2014-2020) General Programme Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows (93% to 96% shared management; remainder under centralised direct management) Asylum European Refugee Fund (ERF III) EUR 614 million , All Member States except DK §Support and encourage Member States in receiving refugees and displaced persons §Emergency measures to address sudden mass influx if migrants and asylum seekers Asylum Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) EUR 3 137 million (initial) All Member States except DK §Strengthen and develop all aspects of the CEAS §Support legal migration to the Member States and promote effective integration of third-country nationals §Enhance fair and effective return strategies and contribute to combating illegal immigration §Enhance solidarity and responsibility sharing between Member States, particularly those most affected by the migratory flows Integration of legally residing TCNs, legal migration European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals (EIF) EUR 825 million, All Member States except DK §Support the integration of non-EU immigrants into European societies Return European Return Fund (RF) EUR 676 million, All Member States except DK §Improve return management §Encourage development cooperation between Member States and countries of return Integrated border management and visa External Borders Fund (EBF) EUR 1 820 million, All Member States (including RO & BG and the Schengen associated states from 2010) except the UK and IE §Financial solidarity amongst Schengen countries §Manage efficient controls and the flows at the external borders §Improve management of the consular authorities Internal security Fund (ISF) EUR 3 764 million (initial) ISF Borders and Visa All Member States except IE and UK plus the Schengen associated states CH, IS, LI, NO §Ensuring a high level of security in the EU and facilitate legitimate travel §Visa and support integrated border management ISF Police All Member States except DK and UK §Ensure a high level of security in the EU, fight against crime, manage risks and crisis General Programme Security and Safeguarding Liberties (centralised direct management) Prevention of and fight against organised crime Specific Programme Prevention of and Fight against Organised Crime (ISEC) EUR 600 million, All Member States §Crime prevention, law enforcement, witness protection and support, victims protection Combating terrorism and other security-related risks Specific Programme Prevention, Preparedness and Consequence Management of Terrorism and Other Security-related Risks (CIPS) EUR 140 million, All Member States §Protection of citizens and critical infrastructure from terrorist attacks and other security incidents The share of funding for home affairs in the EU budget steadily grew (in the period 2007-2013 it amounted to EUR 6.45 billion or 0.77 % of the total EU budget, covering not only the financing programmes, but also funding for large-scale IT systems (Visa Identification System (VIS), Schengen Information System (SIS), EURODAC and the agencies). The spending during this period has been characterised by heavy ‘back-loading’, increasing from EUR 500 million in 2007 to EUR 1.5 billion in 2013. Results from previous evaluations and stakeholder feedback confirm that these instruments have been generally effective and that the EU funding added genuine value. Nevertheless, the EU has been facing a number of policy challenges in the area of crime and terrorism, not all of which could be sufficiently covered by ISEC and CIPS. These are schematically collected in the table below. Table 3: Overview of challenges faced by Member States and the EU in the area of crime and terrorism to be addressed during the period 2014-202011 §Increased cross-border organised crime and reduced effectiveness of national law enforcement activities as well as criminals evading law enforcement bodies by crossing over European borders and jurisdictions. §More sophisticated crimes such as cybercrime and payment card fraud growing in size. §Quick development of the nature of crime. §Terrorism as an increased concern for the EU citizens as it has presented unique threats compared to organised crime due to the sporadic and transnational nature of offences, as well as the low cost of carrying out terrorist attacks (including use of the internet) compared to the very high implications and costs of terrorist activities. §Lack of an effective EU-level strategy and coordination between national authorities on terrorism, including increased risks for Member States’ critical infrastructures. §Growing connections between terrorism and organised criminal activities, separatist and ethno-nationalist terrorist groups. §Increasing extremism. CIPS and ISEC complemented each other and provided a holistic approach to the EU’s prevention of and fight against organised crime and to combating terrorism and other security-related risks. However, there have been drawbacks, identified by the ex post evaluations, as well as during the Commission’s impact assessment accompanying its proposals for the 2014-20 generation of home affairs funds. Overall, such findings included a significant geographical imbalance in terms of programme coverage, administrative burden, lack of clarity in relation to the areas covered by the programme, a range of activities that was too wide leading to fragmentation and lack of focus. In addition, a need for a clearer scope and for boosting coordination among organisations was identified. Besides, the programmes have neither developed as needed nor as fast as the terrorist threats. Therefore, there was an urgent need for an efficient update which is being provided by the ISF-P. This staff working document also analyses the extent to which the recommendations from the ex post evaluations of CIPS and ISEC have been taken into account in ISF-P (see below table). Ex post evaluations of ISEC and CIPS What has ISF-P addressed and how §Suggested a more flexible and faster funding mechanism to address needs on the ground and identify the needs for reducing administrative burden. §The structure was simplified as ISF-P includes only two specific objectives (crime prevention and crisis and risks) supported by seven operational objectives. Moreover, emergency assistance (EMAS) has been available to approach any unexpected emergency situation. §Recommended a dedicated technical assistance budget which could fund an improved monitoring system, including IT systems, visits, technical expertise, etc. §There is a technical assistance budget in order to cover specific personnel, IT systems, business trips, etc. §Proposed more detailed reports from coordinating organisations to improve monitoring of results. §Member States submit annual implementation reports under shared management and interim and final reports (technical/operational and financial) under direct management. §Highlighted the importance of creating of networks and fund more analytical activities. §Europol Information System (EIS) and the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) were created. §Claimed that underspending was a major concern in ISEC and CIPS §Different delivery mechanisms (shared and direct management) 2.2Description of ISF-P and its objectives In a nutshell ISF-P aims to ensure a high level of security in the EU through supporting the fight against crime and managing risks and crises effectively. 2.2.1The ISF-P The legal basis for ISF-P is Regulation (EU) No 513/2014 (the Specific Regulation) adopted by the European Parliament and the Council and it is based on Articles 82(1), 84 and 87(2) TFEU. In addition, general provisions for both AMIF and ISF are laid down in Regulation (EU) No 514/2014 (Horizontal Regulation). These two Regulations are complemented by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/207 on the common monitoring and evaluation framework (CMEF Regulation).

ISF-P’s aim is to help ensure a high level of security in the EU through the fight against crime and managing risk and crises. All Member States, except for DK and the UK, contribute to implementing it. However, the recent terrorist attacks in Europe have highlighted the need for a stronger EU response to terrorism and foreign terrorist fighters. The EU has tried to provide a comprehensive and quick reaction to these significant challenges, by formulating its European agenda on security in 2015 that included five key principles on which all actors involved had to work together: §ensure full compliance with fundamental rights; §more transparency, accountability and democratic control; §ensure existing EU legal instruments are better applied and implemented; §a more joined-up inter-agency and a cross-sectoral approach; and §bring together all internal and external dimensions of security. This agenda has also provided a clear framework for the Member States to work together better on security and was the basis in June 2015 for the European Council’s endorsement of a renewed internal security strategy for the period 2015-2020. The priorities of this strategy are: tackling and preventing terrorism, preventing and fighting serious and organised crime and, preventing and fighting cybercrime. Finally, legislative acts have been adopted or proposed on setting up stronger and smarter information systems for security, making the data architecture of EU information systems more effective and efficient. These include the European Criminal Records Information Exchange System proposal for a Regulation (ECRIS) and passenger name record (PNR) directive. There is an increased need for the interoperability of these IT systems in order to improve data management in the area of security. Considering the evolving needs and challenges related to the security concerns, the ISF-P’s initial budget has been increased to support Member States in implementing the passenger name record directive and develop information exchange and interoperability tools. The following analysis of needs should be read in correlation with the answer to the evaluation question on relevance in sub-chapter 5.4 on page 41. The needs of ISF-P The overview of challenges faced by Member States and the EU in the area of home affairs in the previous period 2007-2013 and presented in Table 2 above, could be translated into the following needs that ISF-P tries to address. §Crime prevention: the need to improve: interoperability of law enforcement systems in the Member States; intelligence sharing between Member States; cross-border joint operational coordination and cooperation between Member States; core capacities in some Member States (trained staff, infrastructure for training); poor quality of forensic data; uneven capacity to provide victim support; lack of capacity to carry out threat and risk assessments; poor communication and involvement of citizens/private sector; and weak cooperation with relevant third countries. §Risks and crises: the need to improve: cross-border joint processes and procedures in case of man-made disasters; uneven coordination and operational cooperation between national crisis centres; lack of capacity to carry out threat and risk assessments; training infrastructure; poor public/private partnerships; insufficient cross-border simulation exercises; and weak partnerships with relevant third countries. General and specific objectives of ISF-P As set out in Article 3 of the Specific Regulation, the general objective of the Fund; ‘…shall be to contribute to ensuring a high level of security in the Union’. This objective further breaks down in two specific objectives on crime prevention and on risks and crises: Specific Objective 1: Crime prevention ‘crime prevention, combating cross-border, serious and organised crime including terrorism, and reinforcing coordination and cooperation between law enforcement authorities and other national authorities of Member States, including with Europol or other relevant Union bodies, and with relevant third countries and international organisations ‘ Through this specific objective, the ISF-P is supporting the fight against all forms of crime, including terrorism and organised crime. In addition, it is helping to increase coordination and cooperation among several law enforcement authorities at national and EU level as well as Europol and other international organisations. Specific Objective 2: Risks and crises

‘enhancing the capacity of Member States and the Union for managing effectively security-related risks and crises, and preparing for and protecting people and critical infrastructure against terrorist attacks and other security-related incidents’ The ISF-P ensures through this objective that all Member States’s capacity to manage security-related risks effectively is strengthened, improved and efficient. Moreover, this objective focuses on the need to prepare people and critical infrastructures against any attack, particularly terrorist ones. In addition, to sufficiently cover and reach these specific objectives a number of operational objectives were defined in order to support a successful implementation. §Promote and develop measures strengthening Member States capability to prevent crime and combat cross-border, serious and organised crime including terrorism, in particular through (i) public-private partnerships, (ii) exchange of information and best practice, (iii) access to data, (iv) interoperable technologies, (v) comparable statistics, (vi) applied criminology, (vii) public communication and (viii) awareness raising. §Promote and develop administrative and operational coordination, cooperation, mutual understanding and exchange of information among Member States law enforcement authorities, other national authorities, Europol or other relevant EU bodies and, where appropriate, with third countries and international organisations. §Promote and develop training schemes, including schemes for technical and professional skills and knowledge of obligations related to respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; and in implementing European training policies, including through specific EU law enforcement exchange programmes, in order to foster a genuine European judicial and law enforcement culture. §Promote and develop measures, safeguards, mechanisms and best practice for early identification, protection and support of witnesses and victims of crime, including victims of terrorism, and particularly for child witnesses and victims, especially those who are unaccompanied or who need guardians. §Measures strengthening Member States administrative and operational capability to protect critical infrastructure in all economic sectors, including through public-private partnerships and improved coordination, cooperation, exchange and dissemination of know-how and experience within the EU and with relevant third countries. §Secure links and effective coordination between existing sector-specific early warning and crisis cooperation bodies at EU and national level, including situation centres, to (i) enable comprehensive and accurate overviews in crisis situations to be produced, (ii) coordinate response measures and (iii) share open, privileged and classified information. §Measures strengthening the EU’s and Member States’ administrative and operational capacities to develop comprehensive threat and risk assessments, which are evidence-based and consistent with priorities and initiatives identified at EU level. This is especially the case for those that have been endorsed by the European Parliament and the Council. This is so the EU can develop integrated approaches based on common and shared appreciations in crisis situations and strengthen mutual understanding of Member States’ and partner countries’ various definitions of threat levels. Beneficiaries of ISF-P The Fund’s beneficiaries include federal and national authorities, local public bodies, non-governmental organisations, private and public companies, and education and research organisations, to the extent that they are relevant for the Fund. Eligible actions The eligible actions under ISF-P are listed in Article 4 of the Specific Regulation. These include: (i) police cooperation and coordination between law enforcement authorities, (ii) networking; (iii) public-private partnerships; (iv) mutual confidence; (v) learning, exchange and dissemination of know-how and best practice; (vi) information sharing; (vii) interoperability; (viii) monitoring and evaluation; (ix) threat and risk impact assessments; (x) awareness raising; (xi) dissemination and communication; (xii) IT systems that help achieve the objectives; and (xiii) training and education of staff and experts of relevant authorities. In addition, the ISF-P is also an important instrument in relation to and in third countries by supporting: opolice cooperation and coordination between law enforcement authorities, including joint investigation teams and any other form of cross-border joint operation; onetworking, mutual confidence, understanding and learning, identification, exchange and dissemination of know-how, experience and best practice, information sharing, shared situation awareness and foresight, contingency planning and interoperability; and otraining and education of staff and experts of relevant authorities. The eligible actions under technical assistance at the initiative of the Commission and of Member States are listed in Articles 9 and 20 of the Horizontal Regulation. These include: expenditure relating to the preparation, selection, appraisal, management and monitoring of the programme, actions or projects or to (i) audits and on-the-spot checks (ii) the strengthening of the administrative capacity; (iii) information and dissemination; and (iv) computerised systems for the management, monitoring and evaluation. Financial allocations, top-ups and management modes ISF-P is implemented through (i) shared management in shared responsibility with the Member States, (ii) direct management by the Commission or (iii) indirect management by an entrusted third party. A more detailed description can be found in sub-chapter 3.1 on page 17. The total resources for ISF-P’s implementation period 2014-2020 have been initially estimated at EUR 1 004 million, are divided as follows: §EUR 662 million or 66 % of the total amount, managed by Member States under the framework of multiannual national programmes (shared management); §EUR 342 million or 34 %, managed by the Commission through annual work programmes focusing on union actions, emergency assistance (EMAS) and technical assistance at the initiative of the Commission (direct or indirect management).

In response to the unforeseen security threats of recent years, most notably the terrorist attacks in many Member States, this budget was increased through a top-up of EUR 70 million to support Member States in implementing the passenger name record directive and another one of EUR 22 million for developing information exchange and interoperability tools. As a result of this, the present allocations of the national programmes currently amount to EUR 754 million. 2.2.2The intervention logic The diagram below, based on ISF-P’s legal basis, presents the key aspects of the functioning of the Fund, including the policy areas that it covers and the specific needs and objectives that it seeks to address, all in correlation with the EU resources allocated. In setting out the causal links between ISF-P’s activities, outputs, results and impacts, the intervention logic helps to clarify what the Fund is aiming to achieve, how it will achieve it and with what. The implementation process is further explained in Section 3.1.





3Implementation / state of play 3.1Description of the implementation process ISF-P is being implemented either by the Member States (shared management), directly by the Commission (direct management), or indirectly by entrusting the budget implementation task to a third party (indirect management). For shared management, at the beginning of the programming period, all Member States had a policy dialogue with the Commission to help them prepare their national programmes. Based on the outcome of the dialogues, the Member States have proposed their multiannual national programmes. The Commission examined these programmes, consulted relevant agencies and eventually approved each national programme. To implement their national programmes, Member States had to set up a management and control system. The Commission follows the implementation under shared management by examining the annual implementation reports and accounts submitted yearly by the Member States. Member States are expected to submit two national evaluation reports: an interim evaluation report by the end of 2017 and an ex post evaluation report by the end of 2023. The Commission takes these reports into account in its interim and ex post evaluations of the Fund which are sent to the European Parliament, to the Council of the EU, to the European Economic and Social Committee and to the Committee of the Regions by 30 June 2018 and 20 June 2024 respectively. In light of the interim evaluation reports submitted by the Member States, and developments in EU policies and in the Member States, a mid-term review of the situation is planned for the middle of the programming period, i.e. 2018 (Art. 15 of the Horizontal Regulation). Based on the outcome, the national programmes can be revised and additional available resources can be allocated to those. A small amount of money equal to 5 % of the total national allocation plus EUR 200 000 is reserved in the national programmes for technical assistance. Moreover, each Member State needs to establish a partnership with relevant stakeholders including, other public authorities, international organisations, NGOs and social partners in order to prepare, implement, monitor and evaluate the national programmes. Stakeholders meet regularly in a monitoring committee set up to follow the national programme’s implementation. Some types of actions, due to their nature, such as transnational actions, innovative projects, support to civil society organisations, and actions requiring fast mobilisation of funds are implemented under direct management by the Commission. Indirect management is used by the Commission to delegate tasks to EU agencies, international organisations and civil society organisations because they are best placed to carry out those activities and also because of the limited human and administrative resources available in the Commission. The share of the budget managed by the Commission is subject to annual work programmes for union actions. This share comprises: §grants (awarded on the basis of open or restricted calls for proposals or directly); §procurement (awarded on the basis of calls for tender or framework contracts); and

§delegation agreements (actions that are entrusted to third parties). The projects selected receive in co-financing a maximum of 90 % of the eligible costs. The emergency assistance is considered a specific type of union actions. 3.2Description of the implementation status 3.2.1Shared management According to the legal base, the EU contribution initially allocated EUR 662 million for all national programmes. However, after the 2017 top-up the reprogrammed amount became EUR 754 million. Such top-up included EUR 70 million to support Member States in implementing the passenger name record directive and EUR 22 million to increase and improve the development of information exchange and interoperability tools. By 31 December 2016, Member States had committed EUR 283.5 million of the total available EU resources for 2014-2020 for national programmes that were adopted, with an implementation rate of nearly 37.6 %. Total payments declared under accounts for 2014-2016 amounted to EUR 63.5 million, resulting in a very low level of payments of 8.42 %. Disaggregating data by the ISF-P specific objectives (SOs), resources have been earmarked for the first specific objective — crime (with 72 % of the planned EU commitment/available EU resources for adopted national programmes), followed by the second specific objective — risks and crisis (with 23 %), and technical assistance (with 5 %). Figure 1: ISF-P allocations for the 2014-2020 under each specific objective (EUR million) For specific objective — crime, the Member States that spent the highest amounts on projects related to this objective are Germany, Spain, France and Italy with EUR 30, 18, 10 and 9 million respectively. Member States that spent the lowest amounts are Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Luxembourg, Latvia or Slovakia, with projects funded for less than one million euro. Furthermore, Poland has not provided any data under this indicator. For specific objective — risks and crisis, Germany, Estonia and Netherlands are the Member States to have spent the highest amounts on projects related to this objective, with EUR 3.4, 3.2 and 4.8 million respectively. The remaining 21 Member States financed projects for less than EUR 3 million. In addition, Croatia and Poland have not provided data under the referred indicator. Among the operational objectives, most funds — EUR 247 million, around 33 % — are allocated to strengthening Member States capability to prevent and combat crime. The second highest amount is allocated to actions under the operational objective ‘exchange of information’ under both specific objectives (‘crime prevention’ and ‘risks and crisis’), with a total of EUR 226 million, around 29 % of all national programmes’ funds. The objectives with the least allocations are the development of threat and risk assessment capacity and support for witnesses and victims of crime (about 3 % for each objective). In terms of Member States commitments by action type, the available data reflects approved projects only. The table below summarises the distribution of funds by action type for approved projects in the national programmes. Over half of the approved funds (56 % for 168 projects) are allocated to the acquisition of IT equipment. Another quarter of the committed funds (25 % for 101 projects) are allocated for equipment, covering a wide variety of national objectives, such as general prevention and combating of crime, drug trafficking, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear explosives (CBRN-E), and cybercrime. A very small share (10 projects with less than 1 % of the committed funds) is allocated to police cooperation and networks development. The implementation rate describes the progress of Member States in launching specific actions to implement their national programmes. However, the implementation rate does not indicate the level of completion of the launched actions. The level of payments represents the amount of payments made by the Commission to a responsible authority implementing a national programme against the allocation available for that same country for the 2014-2020 period. As Member States are free to choose whether to submit accounts after the projects end or during their implementation (e.g. when a certain phase of a project is completed), the level of payments does not necessarily reflect project progress.

A review of the level of payments by Member States indicates that only four countries have payments higher than 20 % (EE, DE, NL and AT), while 10 Member States have payments lower than 1 %. However, considering that the annual accounts for 2017 were submitted by the Member States in mid-February 2018, we can conclude that the overall level of payments has increased by up to 21 %, with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Sweden, Portugal, Latvia and Ireland and many other Member States making significant improvements as illustrated in the figure below. This shows, as expected, the positive and drastic increasing trend of the level of Fund payments for the remaining implementation period. 3.2.2Direct and indirect management Under direct and indirect management, the Fund is centralised at the European Commission level. The Commission approves annual work programmes that define the priorities and objectives for each year, including the priorities for the calls for proposals. They concern union actions, and emergency assistance. Applications for funding under union actions for instance are submitted online and applicants may take part in multiple calls either as an applicant or a co-applicant. Overview of initial allocation of union actions as per annual work programmes and of the amounts actually awarded and spent A total amount of EUR 122.5 million was allocated for union actions and EUR 6.5 million for the emergency assistance as per the annual work programmes 2014-2016. Furthermore, of that amount, EUR 118.5 million was implemented under direct management and EUR 10.5 under indirect management. Current data (2014-2016) on payments show that the main spending has been incurred for calls for proposals (62 %): Calls for proposals The overall budget for calls for proposals for the period 2014-2016 was EUR 41.1 million, including open calls (EUR 36.7 million) and restricted ones (EUR 4.4 million). There were four calls for proposal in each of the first two years (2014 and 2015) and one call in 2016. The policy areas and the budgets for open calls are presented in the following figure: The distribution in the payments made so far among the several policy areas does not show any great discrepancies. The economic, financial, corruption and environment crimes received the highest amount paid (EUR 4.7 million) and the law enforcement training the lowest (EUR 2.6 million). Overall, nearly a total of EUR 29 million was paid out over the period 2014-2016. Direct awards The budget for direct awards in the annual work programmes for the period 2014-2016 is for EUR 22.8 million, accounting for 18 % of all union actions. In the reference period, nine direct grants were awarded, for a total of EUR 12.6 million. Payments for the direct awards amounted to EUR 9.1 million. Beneficiaries from six Member States (DE, PT, AT, BE, NL and SE) received direct awards.

Procurement The budget for procurement in the 2014-2016 annual work programmes was EUR 49.3 million. By 30 June 2017, 207 procurement contracts and 9 administrative arrangements and service level agreements were signed for a total amount of EUR 38.8 million with corresponding payments made for EUR 23.4 million, thus leading to an implementation rate of 60.3 %. Procurement essentially covers services that the Commission purchases directly and due to the nature of procurement, most of the contractors are based close to the Commission’s headquarters. Therefore, contractors from only five Member States (NL, BE, FR, UK and DE) account for 99 % of the procurement contracts. Emergency assistance So far emergency assistance has been awarded in 2016 and 2017 for the following five projects: §Belgian Federal Police (maximum grant EUR 0.9 million, 2016) — for tactical communication tool for special forces; §French Ministry of Interior (maximum grant EUR 0.9 million, 2016) — for analytical system for video surveillance data; §Europol (maximum grant EUR 1.5 million, 2016) — hot spots training and deployment; §Belgian Federal Police (maximum grant EUR 0.7 million, 2017) — for increased explosives and firearms detection; and §Europol (maximum grant EUR 2.2 million, 2017) — hot spots training and deployment.



4Method 4.1Short description of methodology This interim evaluation assesses how the Fund has worked so far and intends to inform the national authorities, the EU institutions, the stakeholders and the general public about the key achievements and limitations of ISF-P. The evaluation includes the analysis of the legal base in relation to the needs and actions implemented and the key changes implemented under the ISF-P relative to its predecessors, as well as the outlook for the remaining implementation period 2017-2020 — this is the summative dimension. The evaluation identifies several lessons learnt to inform the Commission and the Member States on how they could address weaknesses and overcome obstacles, to ensure that during the second half of the implementation period corrective measures are taken and their impact is minimised — this is the formative dimension (see also the key findings in Chapter 6 on page 53). This forward-looking aspect of the evaluation will also contribute to the preparation of the next generation of funding instruments, post 2020. This evaluation of ISF-P has been carried out by an external expert group and has been coordinated by the HOME Funds Evaluation Team in Unit E3 of the Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) with the support of an Inter-Service Steering Group comprising other Commission general directorates and services, which has met four times — on 24 October and 15 December 2017 and on 1 February and 8 March 2018. The external study of the interim evaluation started in September 2017 and has been guided by Terms of Reference adopted by the Commission. It has been based on the following data sources. §Legal acts of the Funds including: the specific regulations; the horizontal Regulation; and implementing and delegated acts.

§Reports from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the application of various directives and regulations. §National programmes of the participating Member States; management and control systems, annual implementation reports and annual accounts; and the national interim evaluation report. §Union actions: Commission annual work programmes; grant agreements signed with awarded beneficiaries; and interim and final reports of the beneficiaries having implemented union actions. §Emergency assistance: Commission annual work programmes for emergency assistance; grant agreements signed with awarded beneficiaries; and interim and final reports of the beneficiaries having implemented emergency assistance actions. §Reports of the monitoring visits of the Commission (shared and direct management); audit reports drafted by the audit authorities of the Member States or by or on behalf of the Commission; §Ex post evaluation of the framework programme ‘Security and Safeguarding Liberties (2007-2013) (SSL)’, composed of two programmes: ‘Prevention and Fight against Crime (ISEC)’; and ‘Prevention, Preparedness and Consequence Management of Terrorism and other Security-Related Risks (CIPS)’. §Relevant EU strategies, action plans, communications, recommendations; other relevant studies originating in the academic sector or produced by other institutions. §Reports and statistics from EU agencies operating in the justice and home affairs/ migration and security area; DG Migration and Home Affairs statistics; Eurostat. 4.2Evaluation questions In line with the ‘Better Regulation’ guidelines, this interim evaluation addresses evaluation questions under each of the sections, which are structured around the five evaluation criteria of relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, coherence and EU added value. Effectiveness To what extent has the ISF-P reached its objectives? §How did the Fund contribute to the prevention of cross-border, serious and organised crime, including terrorism? -What progress was made towards the achievement of the expected results of strengthening Member States capability to combat cross-border, serious and organised crime? -What progress was made towards developing administrative and operational coordination and cooperation among Member Sates public authorities, Europol or other relevant Union bodies? -What progress was made towards developing training schemes in implementation of EU training policies, including through specific Union law enforcement exchange programmes? -What progress was made towards putting in place measures, safeguard mechanisms and best practices for the identification and support of witnesses and victims of crime? §How did the Fund contribute to improve the capacity of Member States to manage effectively security-related risks and crises, and protecting people and critical infrastructure? -What progress was made towards reinforcing Member States administrative and operational capability to protect critical infrastructure in all sectors of economic activity? -What progress was made towards establishing secure links and effective coordination between existing sector-specific early warning and crisis cooperation actors? -What progress was made towards improving the administrative and operational capacity of the Member States and the Union? Efficiency Were the general objectives achieved at reasonable cost? §To what extent were the results of the Fund achieved at reasonable cost in terms of deployed financial and human resources? §What measures were put in place to prevent, detect, report and follow up on cases of fraud and other irregularities? Relevance Did the objectives of the interventions correspond to the actual needs? §Did the objectives set by the Member States in the national programmes respond to the identified needs? §Did the objectives set in the annual work programmes for the union actions address the actual needs? §Did the objectives set in the annual work programmes for emergency assistance address the actual needs? §Which measures did the Member States put in place to address changing needs? Coherence Were the objectives set in the national programmes coherent with the ones set in other EU funded programmes (also during the implementation)? §Was an assessment of other interventions with similar objectives carried out and taken into account during the programming stage? §Were coordination mechanisms between the Fund and other interventions with similar objectives established for the implementing period? §Were the actions implemented through the Fund coherent with and non-contradictory to other interventions with similar objectives? §Was the coherence ensured also of the Fund? Complementarity Were the objectives set in the national programme and the implemented actions complementary to those set in other policies? §Was an assessment of other interventions with complementary objectives carried out and taken into account during the programming stage? §Were coordination mechanisms between the Fund and other interventions with similar objectives established to ensure their complementarity for the implementing period? §Were mechanisms aimed to prevent overlapping of financial instruments put in place? EU added value Was any value added brought about by the EU support? §What are the main types of added value resulting from the Fund support (volume, scope, role, process)? §Would the Member States have carried out the actions required to implement the EU policies without the financial support of the Fund? §What would be the most likely consequences of an interruption of the support? §To which extent have actions supported resulted in a benefit at the Union level? Sustainability Are the positive effects of the projects likely to last when the Fund support will be over? §What were the main measures adopted by the Member States to ensure the sustainability of the results of the projects (both at programming and implementation stage)? §Were mechanisms put in place to ensure a sustainability check at programming and implementation stage? §To what extent are the outcomes/benefits of the actions sustained by the Fund expected to continue thereafter? Simplification and reduction of administrative burden Were the management procedures simplified and the administrative burden reduced for its beneficiaries? §Did the innovative procedures introduced (simplified cost option, multiannual programming, national eligibility rules, more comprehensive national programmes allowing for flexibility, operating support and STS for LT) bring about simplification for the beneficiaries of the Fund? 4.3Limitations and robustness of findings Limitation 1 The first limitation of this evaluation concerns its timing: it is taking place only three years after the ISF-P was launched. Due to the late approval and slow implementation of the national programmes evaluating the cost-effectiveness of the actions has been challenging, since most of the projects are still ongoing or have only very recently begun to be implemented. Funding consumed under the national programmes at the time of this evaluation represent only 8.42 % of the total funding allocated so far, while the average implementation rate was 37.7 %. The evidence on the Fund’s results and impact is thus very limited. It is also not possible to definitively measure the sustainability of the effects of actions, as many of them are still being implemented. Thus, for these reasons this evaluation is not expected nor is it able to produce a full picture of the programme’s results and impacts nor can it draw final conclusions. Mitigation

Only data that were available were considered for this evaluation. Furthermore, tangible results through case studies, interviews and general and relevant project documentation were analysed. Moreover, to determine the sustainability of effects of actions, the likelihood of actions continuing has been assessed instead. Limitation 2 There have been a lack of benchmarks to compare performance, mainly because AMIF and ISF are the first home affairs programmes to have a common monitoring and evaluation framework (CMEF) and a set of indicators (common, result and impact). At the same time, the stakeholders consider that the relevant indicators could be further improved. There has been a lack of quality in the data and in the Member States annual implementation reports, partly because the common monitoring and evaluation framework and all the guidance arrived later in the process (early 2017). Mitigation In this case, the national programmes and the national interim evaluation reports have provided the needed policy and performance baseline. Moreover, statistics on crime (mainly from Eurostat) have been a useful tool to assess the development of the different crime typologies before 2014 and during the implementation period being evaluated here. Limitation 3 There have been issues related to data availability and measurability of impacts (for example, most of ISF-P indicators focus on outputs). Often, these indicators are not linked to the Fund’s specific objectives; hence it is difficult to attribute the observed changes to the Fund. The information gathered through primary sources is limited, since stakeholders have no clear idea of the results brought about by the Fund. The information focuses more on procedural issues, and is providing a very general perspective on the Fund’s implementation, with sporadic examples found on the ground. Mitigation In order to counter this issue, the evaluation has used other sources of evidence and triangulation techniques to assess the soundness of the value of the indicators reported. Also, indicators were not included in the evaluation whenever they were not considered to be strong enough and could alter the interim assessment. Limitation 4

Concerning the open public consultation provided for in the Better Regulation guidelines, the Commission has worked on the future multi-annual financial framework in clusters setting up a streamlined consultation that covered both forward and backward looking questions. Launching a specific consultation for the interim evaluations could have created confusion and not provided much added value compared to the broader exercise. Mitigation The open public consultation for the interim evaluation was therefore replaced by a targeted consultation (involving beneficiaries of union actions) which was eventually used to contextualise the findings. This consultation received input from 23 participants. Overall, DG HOME has thus tried to mitigate these limitations as much as possible, by transparently providing the data sources, all of which are made publicly available. Conclusions are then drawn, where possible, based on the triangulation of evidence from various data sources. Whenever possible, the ex post evaluation of the preceding programmes ISEC and CIPS has been used as a benchmark. 5Analysis and answers to the evaluation questions 5.1How effective has ISF-P been so far? This question aims to provide an insight into whether ISF-P is on track to meeting its objectives. The Fund has two specific objectives: one linked to crime prevention — combating cross-border, serious and organised crime including terrorism and the other to managing security-related risks and crises. In a nutshell The Fund has contributed to a high level of security in the EU by means of preventing and combating cross-border, serious and organised crime, including terrorism, and strengthening coordination and cooperation between law enforcement authorities. It has also contributed to improving Member States’ capability to manage security-related risks and crises effectively and, to a lesser extent, by protecting people and critical infrastructures against terrorist attacks and other security-related incidents. Available evidence indicates that the Fund has helped to improve cooperation and coordination among Member States and European bodies, and towards improving Member States’ capability to develop comprehensive threat and risk assessments, although the number of ISF-P funded projects at national and EU level is relatively low. With regard to union actions, several actions have been initiated in the area of early warning and cooperation on crisis prevention (e.g. the ATLAS network). However, the Fund has made limited progress so far towards (i) boosting Member States administrative and operational capability to protect critical infrastructure, (ii) protecting victims, and (iii) developing training schemes and exchange programmes. Furthermore, it has only made limited progress with third countries and international organisations, although most projects concerning these operational objectives are still ongoing. The Fund has helped the EU to attain a higher level of security in the Union. This has been done via the achievements on its two specific objectives and in particular, the achievement of the seven operational objectives. The Fund has helped reduce the prevalence of cross-border ‘classic crime areas’ in the EU as proved by the contextual crime indicators, while the incidence of new crime areas (e.g. financial and economic crime, cybercrime) has increased. The exact extent to which ISF-P is accountable for these changes cannot be shown. However, a qualitative assessment could show that the preceding ISEC and CIPS programmes as well as ISF-P contributed to the reduction of cross-border crime by means of: (i) better equipped and trained law enforcement officers, (ii) more and better exchange of information through various networks and structures and IT systems as well as (iii) the acquisition of technical equipment. In addition, the Fund has made progress towards improving how current EU policies and instruments are applied and implemented (e.g. passenger name record directive, Prüm Council Decision on automated data exchange, biometric data capture and exchange, and interconnection with the systems of Justice and Home Affairs agencies). Compared to ISEC and CIPS, an important change ISF-P introduced was the new objective of strengthening Member States capabilities. Furthermore, ISF-P is structurally different from its predecessor programmes, since around 40 % of all projects under the national programmes (169 of 419), in terms of the type of action, were focused on IT equipment or other equipment while only 10 projects were focused on police cooperation and networking. Taking this into account, ISF-P has contributed to the operational exchange of information through IT systems and, to a lesser extent, to other forms of transnational exchange and cooperation, which was the key focus of its predecessor programmes. Due to this structural difference in the focus of the programmes, it is not possible to establish a ‘like-to-like’ comparison. Both exchange of information and cooperation and improving operational capabilities are complementary and are key components that contribute to greater security in the EU. ISF-P helped strengthen the coordinated response against threats and crises and bolster the capability of Member States in the fields of threat and risk assessment, early warning systems and protection of critical infrastructure. In order to protect critical infrastructure, most measures focused on strengthening operational capability in case of terrorist attacks, including those involving chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear explosive substances, mostly through training law enforcement officials, acquiring highly specialised equipment and IT software and tools, and improving coordination between stakeholders. In addition, several Member States prioritised the development of training schemes and the establishment of national training capacities for future cross-sectoral training of all stakeholders involved in managing risks and crises.

Likewise, a significant number of Member States implemented actions which focused on establishing secure links and effective coordination between existing sector-specific early warning and crisis cooperation actors, including (i) the development or upgrade of warning-alert systems and (ii) improving coordination between different authorities and with other countries, notably to strengthen cybersecurity. However, the Fund has only made limited progress towards strengthening mutual trust among Member States law enforcement agencies (usually through relationship building during joint training, exchange programmes and participation in union actions, and operational cooperation). These types of actions were either not fully implemented by the national programmes or reduced in volume compared to the Fund’s predecessor programmes. Also, ISF-P has only made limited progress in protecting victims of crime and in protecting people and critical infrastructure against terrorist attacks and other security-related incidents. Nevertheless, the vast majority of stakeholders interviewed stated that the project outputs and results are expected to be delivered in line with the resources and activities set out. Therefore, it is expected that ISF-P will achieve its objectives by the end of the programming period (i.e. 2020). Strengthen Member States capability to combat cross-border, serious and organised crime Under the national programmes, some progress has been made in strengthening Member States’ capabilities to combat cross-border, serious and organised crime, including terrorism, as the vast majority of Member States have implemented or are in the process of carrying out projects related to this objective. On average about four projects are carried out by each Member State, mainly in the fields of financial and economic crime, cybercrime, illicit drug trafficking and terrorist threats. These projects involve improving operational infrastructures, as well as mutual cooperation. As nearly all of these projects are still ongoing, and even if some projects have already produced results and have led or contributed to positive effects, it is still too early to measure the overall impact of ISF-P. Furthermore, Member States have also used ISF-P funds to respond quickly to needs on the ground by investing in IT systems and renewal of operational equipment which aimed to upgrade and increase the operational capability to prevent and combat cross-border, serious and organised crime, especially drug trafficking and terrorism. As to improving IT systems, acquisitions included technological and management systems, network devices, IT solutions, telecommunication interception systems, and computers. Other investments were made on technical equipment, such as mobile analysis laboratories, forensic tools and narcotics analysers. Finally, equipment such as special vehicles, drones and protective vests and equipment was purchased, some of which have already been put into practice (EE, FR and SI). To prevent cross-border and organised crime, automatic number plate recognition systems have been installed (EE, ES and FR). In addition, with the support of ISF-P, Member States have improved their mutual cooperation to investigate and counter cross-border, serious and organised crime, including terrorism. Cooperation took place by way of (i) exchanging information on cross-border crime, (ii) establishing transnational networks and projects, and (iii) Member States participating in joint investigation teams (JITs) and the European multidisciplinary platform against criminal threats (EMPACT) policy cycle. For instance, thematic networks allowed for operational practices to be exchanged on money laundering (AMON network in ES), anti-corruption (AT), police information and analysis (DE), cooperation centres and centres of excellence on cybercrime, and asset recovery. Five Member States (AT, BE, DE, FI and SI) invested in projects involving the exchange of information and practices to counter extremism and radicalisation. National actions financed by ISF-P have also contributed to improving human capabilities and human resources, especially by financing the training and hiring of additional staff. In terms of results, the above actions funded under shared management led to the disruption of organised crime groups, especially through: (i) seizures of cash (EE and FR), (ii) the taking down of websites (FR), (iii) arrests (DE, FR and MT), (iv) seizures of stolen goods (DE and EE) and (v) seizures of drugs, heroin and cocaine (BG, EE, ES, FI and MT). The union actions’ projects have helped strengthen Member States capabilities to prevent and fight against serious, transnational crime as well as improve cooperation. ISF-P funds supported projects in a number of different areas, in particular on radicalisation, cybercrime and trafficking in human beings. This was mainly achieved through gathering and sharing knowledge on a specific crime topic by conducting research and creating networks and databases. Other projects intended to strengthen operation capability through police cooperation, awareness-raising activities and training law enforcement officials. The Fund’s predecessor programmes ISEC and CIPS helped to stimulate, promote and develop cross-cutting methods for preventing and fighting crime. Improved networking and cooperation between authorities across Member States was identified as one of ISEC’s main results (building trust, increasing Member States motivation to work together and ‘improved Community feeling’). It is expected that the union actions of ISF-P will contribute to improving cooperation to a lower extent when compared to ISEC and CIPS as the amount of funding allocated to union actions under ISF-P is a third of that allocated under its predecessor programmes. However, if accounting for the entire ISF-P (including shared management), provided that projects are implemented as expected, the Fund’s contribution is expected to be much greater as developing and using IT systems for exchanging information and other operational state-of-the-art equipment is likely to achieve a more transformational change across all Member States (rather than support single projects with participants from only a few Member States as in ISEC and CIPS). Improve Member States and EU capability to develop comprehensive threat and risk assessments Ten Member States have already implemented or are about to implement actions improving the administrative and operational capability in order to develop comprehensive threat and risk assessments. Therefore, ISF-P is on the right track towards achieving this operational objective. Projects have focused on: (i) protecting critical infrastructure (AT, BG, EE and FI); (ii) developing information systems and knowledge relating to explosives (EE, ES and NL); (iii) training on the identification of possible ‘foreign fighters’ (EL); and (iv) developing analyses on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear explosive threats (EE, IT and LU). The union actions have helped develop comprehensive threat and risk assessments, particularly relating to radicalisation and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear explosives threats. At least two-thirds of stakeholders consulted thought that actions under both shared and direct management modes are achieving their objectives. More than 60 % of all CIPS-funded projects focused on developing frameworks, methodologies, tools and approaches for risk assessment at a sectoral level. To ensure the effectiveness of risk assessment, the ‘cascading effect’ of common infrastructures needs to be taken into account in order to prevent and reduce the consequences of security incidents. The critical infrastructures are interdependent within different sectors, and if these interdependencies are not well assessed and considered this may lead to catastrophic cascading failures and domino effects. Compared with CIPS, ISF-P has managed to develop more comprehensive threat and risk assessments by focusing further on such interdependencies and cascading effects in case of disruption and destruction of critical infrastructures during terrorist attacks, and by ensuring the adaptability of outputs to other sectors and to a large-scale implementation. Coordination and cooperation among Member States, Europol or other relevant EU bodies In order to develop administrative and operational coordination and cooperation among Member States public authorities, Europol or other relevant EU bodies, the funded actions focused on establishing improved cooperation and coordination structures. This was mainly achieved through developing information systems, interconnections between databases and law enforcement applications, as well as developing platforms to exchange information. In particular, Member States used the Fund to comply with their obligations related to implementing EU legal instruments such as the passenger name record (PNR) directive. Most of the Member States have used ISF-P funds to carry out projects that aim to achieve this operational objective, with an average of three projects per Member State. Two-thirds of stakeholders consulted believe that this objective is on track to being attained. Positive contributions towards effective coordination and cooperation are noted mostly through the following measures: (i) setting up structures and centralised information systems to enable information exchange to take place (DE, EL FI, FR, HR, IT, LV, LT and PT); (ii) enabling access to operational databases and ensuring IT systems are interconnected (BG, IE and MT); (iii) improving data exchange, especially in order to implement the Prüm treaty and the passenger name record directive; and (iv) strengthening coordination and cooperation mechanisms between law enforcement authorities and Europol (HU and LT). Furthermore, ISF-P funds have been used to improve firearms control (BG, DE, FR and PL) and to help Member States meet their obligations under the passenger name record directive (BE, CZ, EE, ES, FR, LU, PL and SE) through the implementation of feasibility studies, developing the passenger information unit (PIU) application, and modernising the IT infrastructure and security environments. The exchange of relevant passenger name record data among Member States and with Europol will ensure better cooperation between national authorities and will reduce security gaps.

ISF-P has also supported several national projects that are helping to implement the EU policy cycle. Some of these projects involve: (i) providing IT equipment for forensics experts who are helping to prepare SOCTA (BG); (ii) carrying out a feasibility study on implementing a national criminal intelligence model (LV); (iii) police experts participating in operational meetings (CZ); (iv) enabling the better use of SIENA and the Europol Information System (EIS) to support the exchange of information between Europol and national units (DE, IT, PL, SI and SK); and (v) supporting joint investigation teams (JITs) (AT, DE, FI, LT, PT and SI) that focus on different crime areas (FI). A small number of projects have focused on cooperation with third countries. However, the limited scale of those is unlikely to generate significant results. The union actions focused mainly or partly on developing or improving administrative and operational coordination and cooperation in different thematic areas among Member States public bodies and with Europol, and other relevant EU agencies, such as Frontex, and international bodies, such as Interpol. These projects aim, among other things, to facilitate and standardise the exchange of information and data. The Fund’s predecessor programmes ISEC and CIPS helped develop more stable transnational cooperation between Member States and their agencies, as well as better exchange of information, particularly in the field of forensics, drugs, passenger name record, cybercrime and trafficking in human beings. ISF-P is building upon the projects started in ISEC and CIPS and continuing with some of the actions started through these programmes, such as passenger name record and exchange of information under the the Prüm treaty. Secure links and effective coordination between existing sector-specific early warning and crisis cooperation actors The majority of Member States have implemented actions focused on establishing secure links and effective coordination between existing sector-specific early warning and crisis cooperation actors. Some delays in implementing ongoing projects were reported due to the following reasons: complexity of some projects leading to revisions (NL, LU and SK), or manufacture-related (FR), operational (AT) or coordination (EE) issues. ISF-P has funded the following main types of actions under this operational objective: §improvement of coordination between different departments, units, authorities, including with other countries (AT, ES and FI); §development or upgrade of warning-alert systems (DE and NL); §technical upgrade and acquisition of further equipment (AT, EE, FR, LU and LV); and §development of structures and systems related to cybersecurity in order to establish secure links (AT, CZ and EE). Furthermore, ISF-P has also implemented actions aimed at establishing an international centre for intelligence or other major events (AT), carrying out a feasibility study on establishing a coast guard centre for managing security incidents (BE) and developing a preventive model for security at universities (FI). A key union action has been implemented under this operational objective to support the ATLAS network, which aims to strengthen the preparedness and effectiveness of special intervention units through exercises and other cross-border exchanges, including in crisis situations and the acquisition and sharing of tactical equipment to support special operations. Through procurement, ISF-P funds were used to ensure the operations of Commission's secure zone (through maintenance, gradual upgrade, accreditation of IT systems and project management support) as secure environment for supporting (i) information exchange with EEAS, Europol, and Frontex, (ii) crisis management and risk assessment and (iii) strategic analysis. With regard to the contribution of CIPS Programme, similarly as in the ISF-P, the role of the Joint Research Centre was prominent in implementing these types of actions. CIPS had strong geographical imbalance and limited participation of Member States. As such, the role of ISF-P is expected to be a bit more prominent, although only 23 % of national programmes’ total funding has been allocated to the second specific objective (risks and crises). Strengthening Member States administrative and operational capability to protect critical infrastructure in all sectors of economic activity Despite the expected number of tools put in place to enable the protection of critical infrastructure, Member States did not reach the target in this area. Although actions have been implemented slowly at national level and most of the projects are still ongoing, five Member States (AT, EE, ES, FR and SI) implemented projects on protecting critical infrastructure, which have already been completed and provided shown some results. Projects financed by ISF-P were mainly focused on: §improving cooperation between relevant stakeholders and operators of critical infrastructure in the case of terrorist or chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear explosives attacks, including the training of law enforcement officials (AT, CY, EE, EL, ES, FI, FR, HU, NL, MT, RO and SE); and §acquiring protective and preventive equipment for police forces or special rescue units (BE, CY, CZ, EE, FI, FR, HU and LV).

The achievement of these projects’ objectives was sought through: (i) improving the information systems (EE and SI); (ii) developing emergency response communication strategies (DE and MT); (iii) developing new security concepts (BE, SE and NL) and increasing security at airports (CZ and FR); (iv) establishing an event management centre (HU); and (v) increasing cybersecurity (NL and PT). Similarly, also in response to the recent context of increased security challenges and threats, the union actions presented the protection and resilience of critical infrastructure from chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear explosive materials as a high priority. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) has played an active role in implementing the European programme for critical infrastructure protection (EPCIP), in supporting the European Reference Network for Critical Infrastructure Protection (ERNCIP) and in assessing and validating the modelling tools and decision support systems addressing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear explosives releases. Nevertheless, with the exception of the ERNCIP, the number of actions, their scope and the number of participants has remained limited. If actions related to ‘infrastructure’ continue to be implemented at a slow pace, the ISF-P is unlikely to achieve its operational objective related to critical infrastructure protection. Also in 2015, the Commission launched a call for proposals to support the implementation of the EU chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear explosives action plan on strengthening the security of explosives and the EPCIP. Actions focused on protecting critical infrastructure and training law enforcement practitioners. Measures, safeguard mechanisms and best practices for identifying and supporting witnesses and victims of crime and terrorism The actions implemented have focused on victims of human trafficking, followed by victims of terrorism and of child abuse, domestic violence, drug trafficking and financial crimes. For the type of actions, Member States put in place measures that aimed to raise awareness and provide information to crime victims, and combat human and sex worker trafficking (AT, EE, ES, MT, RO and SE), support crime victims and witnesses in courts (CZ and FI) and protect them through different programmes (AT, CZ, FI and MT), and boost law enforcement training on crime victim support (NL, MT and RO). Furthermore, a lot of ISF-P funded actions are directly or indirectly related to implementing the Directive establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection for victims of crime (FI, MT, NL and SE). Under union actions, limited progress has been made to reach this objective during the evaluation period, notably mid-term outputs so far, since most projects are still in the implementation phase. The relevant projects concern mainly victims of trafficking in human beings (THB), victims of financial and economic crime, and whistle-blowers. These actions aim to provide victim assistance and carry out awareness-raising activities. Project coordinators considered that ISF-P has contributed to achieving this objective, but to a moderate extent (25%). Four interviewees of projects at national and Union level stated that progress has been achieved with regard to supporting victims of crime. Training ISF-P has supported Member States in making progress towards developing training schemes, helping to boost professional skills and knowledge in several relevant policy areas. The majority of Member States have programmed and are implementing measures focusing on training, in particular in the fields of cybercrime, trafficking in human beings, drug trafficking and corruption. In contrast, training schemes to help Member States fulfil their obligations on human rights and fundamental freedoms have been least prominent. Furthermore, some Member States have focused on developing technical and operational skills, including on operating equipment such as drones and IT software. As of June 2017, more than 11 000 law officials have been trained since 2014 compared to a target of about 128 000. If Member States continue implementing actions at the current pace, they are unlikely to achieve the training targets by the end of the period. While a significant number of national actions tended to focus on boosting law enforcement officers’ professional skills to tackle new or emerging threats as well as serious cross-border crimes, some training schemes aimed to improve their technical skills, such as operational, technological, software, and forensic skills. Other training schemes were carried out as an integral part of a larger project within the realm of ISF-P, and they helped boost the participants’ professional skills and knowledge (DE, NL and FR). In summary, the training is expected to result in the expertise of police officers and investigators being strengthened, hence helping law enforcement authorities to carry out their work more effectively. While it is too early at this stage to measure the results of the projects, the collected evidence shows that progress is being made — despite a slower than anticipated start — in many Member States. Under union actions, limited progress has been made towards developing training schemes since most projects are still in the implementation phase. However, there was a call concerning law enforcement training (LETX) in the annual work programme 2015. About half of the stakeholders consulted claimed that training activities were not part of their projects. The union actions that were relevant to training focused on a wide range of topics, especially in conjunction with the aim of strengthening the capability to prevent and combat crime, including terrorism, most notably on: (i) counter-terrorism, (ii) smuggling, (iii) trafficking in human beings; (iv) radicalisation; (v) cybercrime; (vi) drugs; (vii) chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear explosives; (viii) forensics; and (ix) economic and financial crime. While the union actions’ scope as well as the number of participants involved is relatively limited compared to actions under the national programmes, the projects incorporating a train-the-trainer approach have the potential for a multiplier effect in training a large number of law enforcement staff in the second half of the Fund’s implementation. Compared to the ISEC and CIPS programmes, ISF-P’s progress in this area has been limited so far. As presented under the section on coherence, CEPOL should have a more prominent role when it comes to law enforcement training funded through ISF-P. 5.2How efficient has ISF-P been so far? This question aims to consider the relation between the inputs of the Fund (i.e. resources, budget, etc.) and the outputs it achieved. It tries to answer two questions: (i) to what extent the effects of the actions were achieved at a reasonable cost in terms of financial and human resources deployed and (ii) what measures were put into place to prevent, detect, report and follow-up cases of fraud, and other irregularities. In a nutshell Overall, in the limits of available data, it could be considered that the results of the Fund have been achieved at reasonable cost in terms of both human and financial resources. Some Member States have put in place national efficiency measures. However, most Member States face problems with the EU guidance, common indicators and the reporting/monitoring calendar. Despite simplification improvements, the perceived administrative burden can be considered as a factor that undermines efficiency.

Overall, the available data suggests that the Fund’s results have been achieved so far at reasonable costs in terms of both financial and human resources as far as it is possible to assess at this stage. The perceived administrative burden can be considered as being the main factor undermining efficiency. Low levels of human resources costs were associated with implementing the national programmes (at responsible authority or delegated authority level). In terms of number of full-time equivalents (FTEs) in the responsible authority, delegated authority and audit authority compared to the number of projects implemented, the large variation found suggests that the number of required full-time equivalents depends on the scope and volume of the projects that Member States need to implement at a particular moment. A total of 217 annual full time equivalent staff in Member States have been deployed to work on implementing the ISF, which corresponds to an average of 5.4 completed or ongoing projects per full time equivalent. The available data is for the combined ISF-BV and ISF-P, therefore the number of full-time equivalents linked to ISF-P is less than half of the total. The ratio of projects to full-time equivalents ranges from very high to very low. This may be due to the mere volume of ISF allocations, with some Member States receiving relatively smaller allocations (e.g. CZ, MT, LT and SK. It could also reflect the choices made by Member States when designing their programmes. Some Member States have decided to concentrate a significant amount on a few bigger projects, which only cover some operational objectives, while others have numerous smaller projects spread across all operational objectives. On average, 7.08 full-time equivalents per Member State have been involved in managing the Fund and are paid through technical assistance or national budgets, with remarkable differences between the different Member States. Overall, taking into account the average number of projects implemented by 2017 (12.84), an average of 0.55 full-time equivalents were engaged per project. Member States show a growing or stable number of full-time equivalents over the years from 2014 to 2017. Some of the success factors that brought efficiency have been the following: ·public agencies that benefit from the Fund were able to use their own networks to involve additional resources on an ad hoc basis and at no extra cost for the project; ·considerable knowledge and expertise had been gained through experience from previous projects (especially from the CIPS/ISEC programmes and from other programmes with multiannual projects); ·staff were already employed in the organisation; and ·the flexibility of the national programmes. Furthermore, national measures concerning the application, implementation, monitoring and reporting process have been put in place in some Member States to ensure efficiency which include some of the following actions: (i) administrative and technical project approval procedures, (ii) procedures to assess whether expenditure is appropriate, (iii) project monitoring mechanisms, and (iv) national coordination mechanisms. There are also a number of issues at Member State level that are deemed to negatively affect efficiency. These are: (i) the requirement to allocate minimum percentages to national objectives, which are complex and recurrent in reports, (ii) common indicators and (iii) the alignment of monitoring calendars. Measures put in place to prevent, detect, report and follow-up cases of suspected fraud and other irregularities have also been contributing to a cost-effective implementation, through: §prevention: careful examination of project applications; ex ante public procurement control systems; risk analysis by the responsible authority/delegated authority; training on fraud prevention or fraud risk management; provision of guidance tools; and regular communication between projects and responsible authority staff; §detection: administrative control checks; operational on-the-spot checks; financial on-the-spot checks; and ex post audits; §reporting and follow-up: implementation of communication instruments; establishment of procedures for reporting suspected fraud; and establishment of procedures for corrective and deterrent measures. The majority of Member States claim that the management and control measures are appropriate and effective, saying that stringent mechanisms ensure that fraud and irregularities are prevented. However, experience suggests that there is always a potential trade-off between the procedures in place to prevent fraud and irregularities and the Fund’s overall efficiency, in the sense that measures can be seen as very effective for preventing fraud, but they are not necessarily very efficient from a management perspective. DG HOME’s human resources have only slightly increased, despite the large increase in the value of the emergency assistance and the emergency situation on the ground following the migration crisis, and the need to follow-up closely and assist those Member States under pressure while implementing their respective national programmes, which have put an enormous strain on the Commission’s general directorates and services. Overall, the emergency assistance and union actions as well as the objectives concerning indirect management actions have been achieved at a reasonable cost in terms of financial and human resources used in DG HOME. 5.3How much simplification and reduction of administrative burden has ISF-P brought so far? This question aims to analyse the innovative procedures that the Fund introduced and looks at the extent to which they have simplified management procedures and reduced the administrative burden for the Fund’s beneficiaries. Nonetheless, it is difficult to quantify how much simplification was brought by the ISF-P overall, therefore a qualitative assessment has been made instead. In a nutshell The single set of procedures for all areas covered by the Fund and for both AMIF and ISF in general was found to have led to simplification. The simplified cost option was used in only a few Member States who acknowledged its efficiency in reducing the administrative burden. However, the measures that the Fund implemented for simplifying and reducing the administrative burden have only partially achieved their intended goals. In spite of simplification improvements, there is little evidence at this stage that the administrative burden has been significantly reduced. Monitoring, reporting and verification measures are still burdensome and Member States have asked for further guidance in order to comply with EU requirements. The reporting requirements and the irrelevance of some common indicators were also reported as adding to the administrative burden. Overall, the measures that ISF-P implemented to simplify and reduce administrative burden have only partially achieved their intended goals. The ISF-P introduced several new administrative and managerial procedures such as: simplified cost option, multiannual programming, national eligibility rules, more comprehensive national programmes, new IT-tools, and requirements for collecting cost data according to the Better Regulation guidelines and toolbox.

Under shared management, varied opinions are given by the responsible authorities. Up to 11 (half of the consulted responsible authorities) stated that the administrative burden has been reduced. However, eight claimed the opposite and only three stated that there had been a limited reduction compared to previous EU programmes. The responsible authorities claimed that the shift from programming national actions on an annual basis to a multiannual basis was particularly beneficial, in the sense that it provides Member States with the necessary flexibility to plan and adjust their national programmes’ implementation according to changing needs and capacities. The wide variety of benefits entailed by multiannual programming includes: the possibility of having projects with longer life-cycles; the potential for higher levels of payments; and the elimination of the need to prepare annual programmes. However, there are still some challenges such as setting targets for 7 years, reporting multiple times per project or coupling with the co-financiers’ annual commitment capacity since most work with annual budgets. Also, the single set of procedures for all areas covered by the Fund and for both AMIF and ISF was found to lead to simplification. Furthermore, national eligibility rules were deemed to provide more flexibility in managing the national programmes. However, some responsible authorities highlighted that these rules actually added to the administrative burden and led to problems for participants from more than one country. Also, the simplified cost option was not used by most responsible authorities consulted. A minority of responsible authorities acknowledge either its efficiency in reducing administrative burden or its potential to do so. Concerning the undue administrative burden, the presence of some irrelevant indicators as well as the requirement to report on all indicators regardless of the actions implemented under the national programmes was highlighted. Also, there are too many bodies in charge of financial controls over the use of EU funding compared to national funding and this creates a burden when implementing projects and reporting at national level (CZ and NL), the timing of which also differs from the one required under ISF-P. The available data is hard to interpret and does not provide sufficient detail for analysing the simplification and reduction of administrative burden under direct management. Overall, beneficiaries of union actions did not express any concern about the administrative burden and were content with the support they received at EU level. The study did not cover recipients of direct awards and procurement contracts. The ISEC/CIPS ex post evaluations concluded that there is the need for simplification under direct management as the shared management mode was introduced for the first time under ISF-P. Various improvements have been recommended such as: (i) better timing regarding calls for proposals, (ii) making the budget review exercise more efficient, (iii) discontinuing the use of operating grants, (iv) implementing a project monitoring system, (v) strengthening the framework partnership concept and (vi) increasing efforts to use flat-rates, lump sums etc. 5.4How relevant has ISF-P been so far? This question aims to determine whether the Fund’s original objectives are still relevant and how well they still match the current needs and problems. It also addresses the programme’s flexibility against changing circumstances in the wider context. In a nutshell The Fund’s original rationale and objectives are still relevant in the aftermath of the migratory and security crisis. Appropriate mechanisms to address the changing needs have been put in place both at the programming and implementation stages. The flexibility offered by the Fund, consisting of transfers of money between different objectives, helped to address the changing needs. However Member States would appreciate even more flexibility that would result from the minimum allocations of funds to objectives no longer being imposed and the number of national objectives being reduced. Alignment of national and ISF-P objectives The alignment of national and ISF-P’s objectives already started during the policy dialogues between the Commission and Member States. At that level, both parties identified the links between ISF-P objectives and those of national strategic documents (such as national internal security strategies, or cybersecurity, organised crime, or counter-terroris