EN    EN EN 
 
EN    EN  COMMISSION OF THE E UROPEAN COMMUNITIES 
Brussels, 18.2.2009 
SEC(2009) 153 
  
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
 
Accompanying document to the 
  
Proposal for a 
 
REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL  
 
establishing an European Asylum Support Office  
    
IMPACT ASSESSMENT  
 
  
{COM(2009) 66 final} 
{SEC(2009) 154} 
 
EN 2   EN Impact Assessment 
On a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing an European 
Asylum Support Office 
Lead DG:  Justice, Freedom and Security 
Document reference number: COM(2008) … final Commission Legislative Work Progra mme 2009 priority initiative 
Agenda planning reference number: 2009/JLS/044 
Table of contents 
1. PROCEDURAL ISSUES AND CONSULTAT ION OF INTERESTED PARTIES...... 4  
1.1. Calls to set up a European Asylum Support Office ........................................................4  
1.2. Consultation and expertise ................................................................................................6  
1.3. The Impact Assessment Board..........................................................................................7  
2. PROBLEM DEFI NITION .......................................................................................... 7  
2.1. Description of the problem................................................................................................7  
2.2. Specific problems.............................................................................................................. ..8 
2.2.1. Discrepancy in practices and non-optimal exchan ge of best practices at the EU level............................... 8  
2.2.2. Pressures on Member States asylum systems and over-burden for some Member States ........................ 10  
2.2.3. Limited cooperation and coordination as re gards external dimension of the CEAS................................. 12  
2.3. How would the problem evolve, all things being equal?...............................................14  
2.4. EU right to act ................................................................................................................ ..14 
2.5. Subsidiarity test.............................................................................................................. ..15 
2.6. Proportionality test ..........................................................................................................1 5 
3. OBJECTIV ES......................................................................................................... 16  
4. POLICY OP TIONS................................................................................................. 17  
 
EN 3   EN 4.1. Options for the tasks and missions of th e future asylum support structure...............17  
4.1.1. Exchange of be st prac tices..................................................................................................... ................... 18  
4.1.2. Support to monitoring  and quality control ...................................................................................... .......... 18  
4.1.3. Joint processing of asylum a pplications at the EU level ........................................................................ ... 19 
4.1.4. Activities to improve the collection and quality of Country of Origin Information (COI) / improve 
assessment of COI.............................................................................................................. ..................................... 19  
4.1.5. Pool of asyl um experts......................................................................................................... ..................... 20  
4.1.6. Intra-EU relocation ............................................................................................................ ....................... 21  
4.1.7. Training and cap acity bui lding................................................................................................. ................. 21  
4.1.8. Activities linked to the external aspects of practical  cooperation linked to the CEAS: resettlement and 
RPPs 22  
4.2. Options for the institutional format of the future asylum support structure.............23  
4.2.1. Status quo..................................................................................................................... ............................. 23  
4.2.2. Strengthening the European Commission by in creasing human and financial resources ......................... 24  
4.2.3. Creating a ne w network ......................................................................................................... ................... 24  
4.2.4. Creation of the European Asylum Sup port Office as a regu latory agency................................................ 25  
4.2.5. Incorporation of the support asylum struct ure into an existing regulatory agency ................................... 26  
4.2.5.1.  FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency) ................................................................................................ 26 
4.2.5.2.  FRONTEX (European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External 
Borders of the Member States  of the European Union)............................................................................ .......... 27  
4.2.5.3.  JLS IT Agency (Agency for the operational management of SIS II, VIS and EURODAC and for 
the development and the management of  other large-scal e IT systems). ........................................................... 28 
4.2.6. Creation of a Common EU Support Au thority (decision-ma king body)................................................... 29  
5. IMPACT A NALYSIS............................................................................................... 29  
5.1. Impact of options for tasks and mission s of the future support structure..................29  
5.1.1. Exchange of be st prac tices..................................................................................................... ................... 29  
5.1.2. Support to monitoring  and quality control ...................................................................................... .......... 30  
5.1.3. Joint processing of asylum applications at  EU level............................................................................ ..... 31  
5.1.4. Activities to improve the collection and quality of Country of Origin Information (COI) / improve 
assessment of COI.............................................................................................................. ..................................... 32  
5.1.5. Pool of asyl um experts......................................................................................................... ..................... 33  
5.1.6. Intra-EU relocation ............................................................................................................ ....................... 34  
5.1.7. Training and cap acity bui lding................................................................................................. ................. 35  
5.1.8. Activities linked to the external aspects of practical  cooperation linked to the CEAS: resettlement and 
RPPs 36  
5.1.9. Contribution of different tasks to the objectives .............................................................................. ......... 37  
5.2. Impact of options for the institutional fo rm of the support asylum structure ...........37  
5.2.1. Status quo..................................................................................................................... ............................. 38  
5.2.2. Strengthening the European Commission by in creasing human and financial resources ......................... 38  
5.2.3. Creating a ne w network ......................................................................................................... ................... 39  
5.2.4. Creation of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) as a regulatory agency ................................. 41  
5.2.5. Incorporation of the support asylum struct ure into an existing regulatory agency ................................... 44  
5.2.5.1.  FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency) ................................................................................................ 44 
5.2.5.2.  FRONTEX (European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External 
Borders of the Member States  of the European Union)............................................................................ .......... 46  
5.2.5.3.  JLS IT Agency (Agency for the operational management of SIS II, VIS, EURODAC and other 
large-scale IT  systems). ....................................................................................................... ............................... 49  
5.2.6. Creation of a Common EU Support Au thority (decision-ma king body)................................................... 51  
 
EN 4   EN 5.3. Respect of fundamental rights ........................................................................................52  
6. PREFERRED POLI CY OPT ION ............................................................................ 52  
7. MONITORING AND EVALUAT ION ....................................................................... 54  
ANNEX 1:  OVERVIEW OF STAKEHO LDERS CONSULTED DURING THE 
FEASIBILITY STUDY ................................................................................................... 55  
ANNEX 2: STATIS TICAL DA TA................................................................................... 63  
ANNEX 3: ...................................................................................................................... 7 0 
INFORMATION ON PRACTICAL COO PERATION RELATING  TO COI ..................... 70  
SHARING COUNTRY OF ORIGI N INFORMATION  (COI)............................................ 70  
ANNEX 4: EX- ANTE FINANCIAL ANAL YSIS (EXCEL TABLES ) .............................. 74  
ANNEX 5: FINANCIAL ADDI TIONAL DATA................................................................ 86  
 
1. PROCEDURAL ISSUES AND CONSULTATION OF INTERESTED PARTIES  
1.1. Calls to set up a European Asylum Support Office  
Work to set up a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) star ted immediately after 
the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force in May 1999, on the basis of the orientations 
given by the Tampere European Council (October 1999). 
The 2004 Hague Multiannual Programme for stre ngthening the area of freedom, security 
and justice1 set out the framework and main objectives, one of these being ‘ to provide 
protection in accordance with the Geneva Convention on Refugees and other 
international treaties to persons in need ’. Among other things, the European Council 
invited the Council and the Commission to set up in 2005 appropriate structures 
involving the national asylum serv ices of the Member States, the aim being to facilitate 
practical and collaborative cooperation. Afte r establishing a common asylum procedure, 
                                                 
1  The Hague Programme: Strengthening Freedom, Security  and Justice in the European Union, Presidency 
Conclusions: Brussels, 4/5 November 2004. http://ec.europa.eu/ju stice_home/news/information_dossiers/the_ hague_priorities/doc/hague_programme_e
n.pdf . 
 
EN 5   EN these structures should be transformed, on the basis of an evaluation, into a European 
support office  for all forms of cooperation between  Member States relating to the 
CEAS.  
The Commission identified in th e Action Plan ten priorities2, the third of which was 
entitled ‘ A common asylum area: establish an effective harmonised procedure in 
accordance with the Union’ va lues and humanitarian tradition ’. This was to include: 
• work towards the establishment of a co mmon asylum area taki ng into account the 
humanitarian tradition and respect of inte rnational obligations of the Union and the 
effectiveness of a harmonised procedure; and 
• establishing a European support office  for all forms of cooperation between 
Member States relating to the Common European As ylum System (after the 
establishment of a common asylum proce dure and on the basis of an evaluation). 
In April 2008, the Justice and Home Affair s Council adopted conclusions on practical 
cooperation in the field of as ylum and expressly invited th e Commission to put forward 
suggestions to step up practical coope ration until a decisi on is taken on the future 
structure for supporting practical cooperation.  
With a view to preparing the second stag e of the CEAS, in June 2008 the Commission 
adopted a Communication3 entitled “Policy Plan on Asylum  — An Integrated Approach 
to Protection across the EU”, which set out a road  map for the second stage of 
completing the CEAS, and announced that it wo uld put forward a legi slative proposal to 
set up a European Asylum Support office . 
In the meantime, the Commission Communicat ion entitled “European Agencies — The 
Way Forward”4, adopted in March 2008, placed a moratorium on setting up new 
agencies within the Union. However, ag encies which were already under inter-
institutional discussion woul d go ahead as planned, including possible proposals in the 
field of justice and home affairs. This spec ifically concerned a po ssible proposal to set 
up a European Support Office for Asylum.  
At the end of September 2008, the European  Council adopted the European Pact on 
Immigration and Asylum. Under this Pact5, the European Council expressly agreed to 
                                                 
2  Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: The Hague Programme: 
Ten priorities for the next five years, COM (2005) 184 Final. 
3  Communication from the Commission to the EP, the Council, the European Economic and Social 
Committee and the Committee of Regions: Policy Plan on asylum, An integrated approach to protection 
across the EU , Com(2008)360 Final. 
4  “European Agencies — The Way Forward”, Com(2008)135 Final. 
5 
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/servlet/driver? page=Result&lang=EN&typ=Advanced&cmsid=639&ii_
PUBLIC_DOC=%3E0&ff_COTE_DOCUMENT=13440%2F08&ff_COTE_DOSSIER_INST=&ff_TITRE
=&ff_FT_TEXT=&ff_S OUS_COTE_MATIERE=&dd_DATE_DOCUMENT=&dd_DATE_REUNION=&
dd_FT_DATE=&fc=ALLLANG&srm=25&md=100&ssf=.  
 
EN 6   EN “establish in 2009 a European support office  with the task of facilitating the exchange 
of information, analyses and experienc e among Member States, and developing 
practical cooperation between the administra tions in charge of examining asylum 
applications” .  
1.2. Consultation and expertise 
The Policy Plan on Asylum was drafted on the ba sis of an in-depth reflection and debate 
with stakeholders on the future architecture of  the CEAS and on the re sults of the debate 
that followed the Commission’s Gr een paper published in June 20076, the aim of which 
was to identify the options for shaping the second phase of the CEAS. Specific 
questions7 were asked as regards the possible crea tion of a support asylum structure. The 
response to the public consu ltation included 89 contributions  from a wide range of 
stakeholders8, including 20 Member States, re gional and local authorities, the 
Committee of Regions and the Economic and Social Committee, UNHCR, academic institutions, political part ies and a large number of NGOs. The replies to the Green 
Paper showed broad support for enhancing prac tical cooperation activi ties related to the 
CEAS and for the idea of crea ting a dedicated structure to support and coordinate such 
activities in the form of an asylum support structure. The preferred policy option of the 
policy plan impact assessment report included the creation of the European Support 
Office for Asylum . 
In early 2008, the Commission ordered an exte rnal feasibility study on the establishment 
of structural support for the practical coopera tion in the field of asylum, which would 
feed into the impact assessment of the fu ture European Asylum Support Office. The 
external study was based on a round of stake holder consultation, consisting of ten case 
studies and interviews with over fifty stakeholders
9. Annex 1 to this report presents a 
detailed overview of the stakeholders consulted during the feasibility study. The 
contractor then organised two workshops , held in April 2008 and June 2008. During 
these workshops, the stakeholders were invite d to give their views concerning the tasks, 
                                                 
6 Green Paper on the future Common European Asylum System, COM (2007) 301Final.  
7  See under para.3, questions 21 and 22. 
8 The 89 contributions received are available at: 
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/news/consulting_public/gp_asylum_system/news_contributions_asylum_s
ystem_en.htm . 
9  The following work has been undertaken by the contractor: review and analysis of Member States responses 
to the Green Paper; interview with DG JLS officials responsible for asylum and officials responsible for 
agencies within Sec Gen. The following stakeholders have been interviewed: representatives of the 
European Parliament; representatives of existing cooper ation initiatives or structures (e.g. EURASIL, IGC, 
GDISC, EMN); representatives of NGOs and inter-governmental organisations, including ECRE, UNHCR, 
and Caritas Europe and Ministerial departments and competent bodies responsible for the formulation of asylum policies in 10 Member States. Case study vis its were undertaken to: Belgium, France, Germany, 
Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sl ovenia, Spain, Sw eden, and the UK. 
 
EN 7   EN functions and organisational stat us of the support structure10. The feasibility study was 
finalised at the beginning of November 2008. 
The first meeting of the Inter-Service Steering Group took place on 10 October 2008, 
bringing together representatives of diffe rent Commission depa rtments involved in 
preparing the impact assessment11. It was convened to discus s the draft final report of 
the feasibility study. A second meeting took place on 7 November 2008 to discuss the 
draft impact assessment report prepared by JLS. Useful comments were given by the 
DGs represented during the meetings or sent afterwards in writing and were taken into 
account in the draft final report to be subm itted to the Impact Assessment Board. In 
particular, SEC GEN (comments given dur ing the meeting of 07/11/2008) and BUDG 
(comments given orally before the meeting) asked to reinforce the section detailing the 
preferred option, specifically  the text a nd comparison table of institutional options.  
1.3. The Impact Assessment Board 
The Commission’s Impact Assessment Board (I AB) was consulted on the draft final 
Impact Assessment report and issued its opinion on 8 December 2008.12 The IAB 
considered that ‘the report identifies a range  of credible options for the institutional set-
up of the asylum support office". The IAB formulated a number of recommendations, 
which have been taken into account in this report. The main recommendations were: (i) 
to improve the comparability of options (i i) Clarify the added-value of each task 
compared to the status quo, (iii) enhance th e analysis of synergies of combining tasks 
into a single organisation and iv) Clarify problem definition and objectives by the new 
institutional structure. 
2. PROBLEM  DEFINITION 
2.1. Description of the problem 
The European Council of September 2008, when adopting the European Pact on 
Immigration and Asylum, solemnly reiterated th at any persecuted foreigner is entitled to 
obtain aid and protection on the territory of the European Union in application of the 
Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 relating to the Status of Refugees, as amended by 
the New York Protocol of 31 January 1967, and other relevant treaties. Though much 
progress has achieved in recent years as a result of implemen ting common minimum 
standards with a view to introducing the CEAS , considerable disparities remain between 
Member States on granting protection and on the forms that protection takes.  
Legal instruments were adopted during the first phase of the CEAS. However, the 
practical implementation of the Directives reveals significant differences in processing 
                                                 
10  Czech Republic, Cyprus, German y, Finland, France, Malta, Sloven ia and the UK, UNHCR, GDISC and 
ECRE. 
11  SG, LS, BEPA, BUDG, ADMIN, IAS, EMPL, EAC, RELEX, DEV, ELARG, AIDCO, ECHO. 
12 The opinion will be available here: http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/cia_2008_en.htm . 
 
EN 8   EN asylum applications both in terms of quality of assessment and in terms of diversity of 
processing across the Union. That is why th e Commission, in the Policy Plan of June 
2008 decided (1) to conduct a full -scale review of the asylum acquis  to improve its 
content and (2) stressed the need, in parall el to this review, to enhance practical 
cooperation related to the CEAS.  
Though practical cooperation rela ted to the CEAS may be c onsidered as already well 
developed, many aspects remain limited in sc ope and non-optimal and therefore need to 
be tackled.  
2.2. Specific problems  
The main problems as regards prac tical cooperation are the following: 
• Discrepancy in practices and non-optimal exchange of best  practices at EU level; 
• Pressures on Member State asylum syst ems and over-burdening of some Member 
States, and 
• Limited cooperation and coordination as rega rds the external dimension of the CEAS. 
2.2.1.  Discrepancy in practices and non-optimal exchange  of best practices at the EU level  
At present, applications for international protection are not trea ted equally across the 
EU. A key indicator of the unequal processing of applica tions is the substantial 
difference in the recognition rates between Me mber States concerning asylum seekers 
from the same country of origin. For instance,  the recognition rate in Austria for persons 
coming from Afghanistan in 2006 was 84%, co mpared to 2% in Greece (see Annex 2, 
table 2.2. for more complete information — figures UNHCR)13. As a consequence, 
asylum seekers have very different prosp ects of finding protecti on, depending on where 
in the EU their applications are examined. It is necessary to ensure asylum seekers’ right 
to a fair and efficient asylum procedure. Th e substantial differences in the assessment of 
protection needs from one Member State to another undermine the credibility of 
European efforts to build a common asylum sy stem. It is often difficult to identify the 
reasons for these divergences in outcomes  by Member States which, while applying 
similar substantive rules regarding the legal cr iteria to be applied in deciding on the need 
for protection, have in many instances wide ly differing case-loads and administrative 
capacities, as well as significantly different  administrative practices, traditions and 
procedures. Member States may also have access to information on the situation in 
countries of origin which va ries in terms of its comprehensiveness and reliability.  
                                                 
13  Other examples quoted in the Asylum Plan impact assessment as follows: on applications regarding asylum-
seekers from Russia (mostly of Chechen background), in Austria 63% of decisions were positive while in 
Slovakia the percentage was 0%. 98% and 55% of Somali asylum-seekers got a positive decision in Malta 
and in the UK respectively while th e percentage of positive decisions for the same group was 0% in Greece 
and Spain. In Belgium, 38% of Iraqi asylum-seekers received a positive decision, while in the UK that 
percentage was 20% and in Greece less than 2%. 
 
EN 9   EN As an example of the substantial differences  across the EU in terms of decision-making 
in granting protection, in 2006 the share of  total positive decisions (i.e. decisions 
granting international protect ion) varied considerably14, as follows:  
• it ranges between 0% and 3% for total first instance decisions in some Member 
States, such as Slovakia (0.3%), Slovenia  (1%), Greece (1.75%), and Cyprus (3%); 
• it appears relatively limited in those Memb er States rendering the most asylum 
decisions across the EU: Germany (6.3 %), France (7.7%), UK (18.3%);  
• it is significantly higher in certain Memb er States: Austria (26%), Belgium (29%), 
Sweden (49%), Italy (56%); the data for Sw eden are particularly notable considering 
that it was the second most important country of asylum in the EU in 2006. 
Practical cooperation related to the CEAS is cu rrently carried out in informal fora set up 
for this specific purpose. Some of these fora were set up by the Commission, such as 
EURASIL15, which is an expert group dealing with various aspects of practical 
cooperation related to CEAS, in particular exchanging Country of Origin Information, 
thematic asylum related issues and best  practices among the 27 EU Member States, 
observer states16 and the UNHCR. Others are external  to the Commission, such as the 
General Directors’ Immigration Services  Conference (GDISC), which promotes 
operational cooperation between the Immigr ation Services responsible for the 
implementing immigration and asylum issues in Europe.  
The informal nature of these fora and the f act that they do not have any decision-making 
power appear, however, often to be an impedi ment to quick and effective results. These 
fora provide information to participants, a nd to a certain extent exchange good practices 
and discuss the interpretation of co ncepts enshrined in the asylum acquis.  However, no 
decision can be taken to ensure  that best practices observed or tested are mainstreamed 
and no effective follow-up is organised. This leads to discrepancies in practices within the Union. It appears also that some Member States have a lot of expertise at national 
level which is not shared. This is the case par ticularly at judicial level. In each Member 
State, extensive national case law is often av ailable but the interpretation of concepts 
enshrined in the asylum acquis  differ between countries due to the fact that national 
judges are unaware of the decisions taken in other Member States of the Union. This can 
contribute to wide divergences in the decisions to be taken on cases that may appear to 
be similar from one country to another. Fi nally, the sustainability of the activities 
undertaken in these fora (see below, e .g. training activities, Country of Origin 
Information activities) is quest ionable due to resource problem s and to a lack of a clear 
long-term budget.  
                                                
 
14  Source of information: Asylum Plan. 
15  EURASIL, the EU network for asyl um practitioners chaired by the Commission, was established in July 
2002 following the decisi on of by the Committee of th e Permanent Representatives (Cor eper II) on 6 March to cease 
the activities of the CIREA group (Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on Asylum).  
16  Canada, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and USA. 
 
EN 10   EN A clear illustration of the pr oblem and need to improve pr actical cooperation related to 
the CEAS is the training of personnel in prof essions dealing in one way or another with 
access to the asylum procedure. The level of training varies across the Union. Some 
Member States have no experience in as ylum as they have only recently become 
destination countries for persons requesting international protecti on. In these Member 
States, training is difficult to organise due to a lack of expertise. In the EURASIL 
meetings, stakeholders regularly express the ne ed for better training at European level of 
personnel involved in the asylum assessment pr ocess. The experience of the European 
Asylum Curriculum, which is a joint traini ng initiative, has proved to be useful for 
practitioners in the asylum fi eld. So far, however, no other relevant initiative has been 
undertaken. The financial sustainability of th e project is moreover not fully established. 
The same applies to training as there are no mechanisms to ensure that individual 
learning from staff exchange programmes or projects result s in organisational learning 
(e.g. integrating practices , setting up or modifyin g training programmes).  
The existing problems and the need to step up practical cooperation related to CEAS are 
also illustrated by the collec tion, organisation, assessment and presentation of Country 
of Origin Information (COI). These are all central to the asylum processes and decision 
making of EU Member States. COI enables the asylum authorities of Member States to 
verify statements made by applicants co ncerning their need fo r protection and to 
establish whether the applican t should benefit from international protection. It appears 
that for the time being, the absence of c onsistently high quality COI across all Member 
States may partly account for different recognition rates. 
2.2.2.  Pressures on Member States asylum system s and over-burden for some Member States 
Data on asylum applications re lative to the size of the resi dent population of the Member 
States show some interesting findings about  the distribution of the burden of asylum 
seekers across EU Member States.17 
• Cyprus received by far the largest number of applications for asylum in relative terms 
in 2006 (5.9), followed by Malta and Sweden, with 3.1 and 2.7 applications 
respectively per thousand population.  
• Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, the Slovak Republic and the United Kingdom 
remained above the EU average of 0.4 in 2006 but showed a significant decrease in 
the number of applications pe r thousand population between 2003-2006. 
• The new Member States (excluding Cyprus and Malta) were generally positioned 
below the EU average in 2006. 
According to the feasibility  study, some Member States, being traditional emigration 
countries, such as Spain, Italy, Greece, Pola nd and Malta have little experience in the 
area of asylum. Such countries have experi enced difficulties in setting up and running an 
                                                 
17 Source: asylum plan. See also in anne x 2 to this report, statistical data. 
 
EN 11   EN asylum system in a relatively short period of time, with limited human and financial 
resources to draw upon.  
Some Member States suffer capacity problems concerning the processi ng of applications 
(insufficient numbers of traine d staff) and the reception of asylum seekers (e.g. lack of 
housing and integration). This is currently addressed by th e amendment to the reception 
conditions directive to be proposed by the Commission during the second phase of the 
CEAS. However, support to these Member Stat es through practical c ooperation needs to 
be increased in parallel.  
Some Member States experience problems lin ked to high or mass influxes of persons 
seeking international protec tion, including Malta and Greece18. According to the 
feasibility study, stakeholders , such as the UNHCR and NGOs active in the asylum field 
indicate that difficulties to react in a timely manner to a mass influx results in backlogs in handling cases (procedures for hiring extra staff are often very time-consuming, as is 
training of new staff) and insufficient physical  capacity to accommodate asylum seekers. 
For example, a recent press report from th e local head of the UN refugee agency 
UNHCR said Greece was facing a crisis situation as it struggles to  cope with an 
increasing number of migrants from the Mi ddle East and Africa arriving on its long 
Mediterranean coast. This report states in particular that “(…) There is a backlog of 
some 20 000 cases waiting to be processed (… ). Greece needs to deploy translators and 
legal councillors at recepti on centres along its frontier to ensure asylum requests are 
quickly and fairly processed, but there is an undue burden on the countries which have external borders in Europe”.
19  
It appears that the present le vel of practical cooperation in  the area of solidarity, burden 
sharing and increasing capacity is limited. Only a few initiatives have been taken, often ad hoc and limited in scope, and have proved insufficient to efficiently support Member States confronted with mass influxes. For ex ample, a few initiatives have been launched 
by ENARO (European Network of Asylum Reception Organisations
20). The aim of 
cooperation is to develop best  practice models for the recep tion of asylum seekers and 
examine trends and developments in the profile and numbers of asylum seekers. As such, it particularly addresses the problem that some Member States have little 
experience in the area of asylum or suffer capacity problems. The approach to achieve 
                                                
 
18  See Annex 2, table 2.1. 
19  Fri 10 Oct 2008, 9:21 GMT, By Daniel Flynn, ATHE NS (Reuters). Interview of Giorgos Tsarbopoulos, 
local head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR.  
20 Belgium: Fedasil; Czech Republic: Refugee Facilities Ad ministration; Denmark: Dani sh Red Cross; Finland: 
Ministry of Employment and the Economy; Ireland: Reception and Integration Agency; Italy: Central 
Service of the Protection System for asylum seeker s and refugees; Malta: Ministry for the Family and 
Social Solidarity; The Ne therlands: Centraal Orgaan opvang As ielzoekers; Norway: HERO Mottak og 
Kompetanse AS; Spain: Ministerio de Trabajo Y Asun tos Sociales Dirección General de Integración de Los 
Inmigrantes; Sweden: Swedish Migration Board; Switzerland: Bundesamt für Migration Abteilung 
Empfangs- und Verfahrenszentren; and, United Kingdom: Kent County Council Service for 
Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children. 
 
EN 12   EN these aims involves exchange programmes for staff and experts, evaluations and 
activities to identify best pr actices. This form of cooperati on should be scaled up and all 
stakeholders should be included in the proces s. Information for stakeholders could also 
be more efficient.  
The European Refugee Fund (ERF) was created  to address these problems of solidarity, 
burden sharing and capacity. Financial suppo rt is provided through ERF not only to 
increase the capacity of asylum systems in th e Member States in general, but also to 
improve reception conditions and access to asylum procedures. However, the ERF 
clearly lacks the resources needed to eff ectively finance the real efforts made by 
Member States to implement refugee policy. As an example, the French asylum 
administration (OFPRA) alone costs approxima tely €50 million a year, while the total 
resources of the ERF for 2008, to be al located to the 27 Member States are 
approximately €75 million21.  
A reserve has recently been established for emergency measures22. This reserve can, 
from 2008, be used to address ‘particular pressures situations resulting from sudden 
arrivals of large numbers […] which place significant and urgent  demands on Member 
States’ reception facilities or asylum systems.’23. It is however too early to assess the 
efficacy of this mechanism.  
The project to establish a pool of interpre ters addresses capacity problems in Member 
States and sudden pressures. The ARGO24 project was initiated under the GDISC 
umbrella. The objective of the project was to set up a ‘Rapid Capacity Team’ for interpreters, addressing particular pressures when needs arise. Following the success of 
two pilot operations, the Inte rpreters’ Pool was extended to  include more countries and 
widen the pool of available languages and inte rpreters. Certain countries act as “donor” 
countries, sharing their interp reter capacity, and others ar e “beneficiary” countries. The 
scope of the pool has however remained li mited; to date only a limited number of 
interpreting missions have been carried ou t. There are also concerns about the 
sustainability of the project a nd the availability of funding. 
2.2.3.  Limited cooperation and coordination as regards external dimension of the CEAS 
The EU is the main destination for asylum -seekers among industrialised countries. Most 
refugees in the world live in poor regions clos e to areas of conflict, where resources for 
addressing their needs are scarce and where a durable solution for them is difficult to 
                                                
 
21  Source of information: Asylum Plan. 
22 Council Decision 2001/55/EC of 20  July 2001 (10 million each year). 
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/funding/refugee/funding_refugee_en.htm . 
23 http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/funding/refugee/funding_refugee_en.htm . 
24  ARGO is an action programme for administrative cooperation at European Union level in the fields of 
asylum, visas, immigration and external borders, replacing in part the Odysseus programme. See under 
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/funding/2004_2007/argo/funding_argo_en.htm. 
 
EN 13   EN attain.25 The EU does not take its fair share in  the responsibility for managing refugees 
with third countries and countries of first as ylum, which receive a far greater percentage 
of the world’s refugees than Europe. The ex ternal dimension is therefore an integral 
component of the CEAS and pr actical cooperation on the CEAS.  
To date, the external dimensi on of the CEAS and related pr actical cooperation is limited 
to a few initiatives taken in the fields of resettlement and Regional Protection 
Programmes (RPPs). 
• Resettlement is a durable solution for those refugees for whom return to their country 
of origin is not f easible and who cannot receive permanent prot ection in the third 
country either, among these particularly vulne rable persons. It implies the transfer of 
refugees from a third country in which they have sought asylum to an EU State that has agreed to grant them permanent protec tion there. Currently, resettlement is only 
available for a comparatively small number of refugees. In 2006, less than 1% of the 
almost 10 million refugees  worldwide directly bene fited from resettlement
26. Between 
2003 and 2007, EU Member States collectivel y resettled a mere 9% of the world’s 
refugees (see Annex 2, Table 2.3 “EU sh are of refugees rese ttled worldwide” – 
Source UNHCR). Several governmental and non-governmental bodies in the EU are working to further expand resettlement. Th ere has been some success in increasing 
Member State participation in resettleme nt, but so far the number of refugees 
resettled in the EU remains limited. There is also a lack of coordination between Member States to identify political and ge ographical priorities. This does not allow 
for a truly strategic use of resettlement at the EU level. Moreover, the lack of 
coordinated cooperation on practical and logistical aspects results in limited 
efficiency and extensive use of human and fi nancial resources, and thus constitutes an 
obstacle to making a substantial and sustai ned EU commitment to resettlement. Lack 
of coordination also limits the scope for rese ttlement to develop its full potential as an 
integral component of the exte rnal policies of the EU, for instance, in th e context of 
the Regional Protection Programmes (RPPs). 
                                                
 
25  Most refugees remain in regions close to thei r countries of origin, without durable solutions 
and imposing a burden on poor, developing countries. By region, the CASWANAME region  
(Central Asia, South West Asia, North Africa and Middle East) is the world’s most affected, with close to 4 million refugees, followed by Africa with close to 2.5 million. Europe comes 
third with 1.7 million refugees. The countries hosting the biggest refugee populations are, in 
decreasing order: Pakistan, Iran, the US, Syria, Germany, Jordan, Tanzania and the UK
25. At 
the same time, in 2006, a total of 605 000 new or appeal applications for asylum or refugee status were submitted to Governments or UNHCR offices in 151 countries, and out of the 
total of 605 000 asylum applications lodged during 2006, some 504 000 (83%) requests were 
submitted for the first time. Most applications were registered in Europe (307 000), followed 
by Africa (159 000), the Americas (78 000), Asia (53 500), and Oceania (7 100). See also 
annex 2, table 2.3 “EU share of refug ees resettled worldwide” – Source UNHCR. 
26 UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2 006, http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-
bin/texis/vtx/home/opendoc.pdf?id=478ce0712&tbl=STATISTICS. 
 
EN 14   EN • Regional Protection Programmes (RPPs) we re developed under the Programme for 
Freedom, Security and Justice for the year s 2005 to 2010. They aim to enhance the 
protection capacity of the regions involved and provide Durable Solutions27. The 
RPPs are currently limited to  two pilot regions that were  selected by Member States 
in September 2005, namely Tanzania (Great Lakes region), as mainly a region of 
origin, and the Western Newly Independent States (WNIS) i.e. Ukraine, Moldova and 
Belarus, as mainly a region of transit. Limited coordination to assess particular 
refugee situations, set priorities, identify pr otection gaps and the specific steps to be 
taken means that the current RPPs have a limited scope, and a limited impact in improving protection and asylum systems in  specific regions of the world which 
receive a far greater percentage of refugees than the EU. The Commission 
acknowledged the need to improve the RPPs in the Asylum Plan. It will evaluate the 
RPPs, which will be the basis for de veloping these programmes further. 
2.3. How would the problem evolve, all things being equal? 
The baseline scenario (‘status quo’) assumes th at practical cooperation is developed in 
an ad hoc and decentralised way, with relatively few resources. 
The current framework for pr actical cooperation related to  CEAS only provides for 
financing ad hoc projects without much c ontinuity. Resources would continue to be 
scarce and coordination between Member Stat es is still under developed. The quality of 
country of origin information would continue to vary from one Member State to another 
and information would not be fully shared. EURASIL meetings would continue to be 
organised. However they have been held for years now without having a significant 
impact, for instance, on approximating decisi on-making practices, wh ich are still very 
divergent. Without structural  support (both from a human and financial resources point 
of view), it will be difficult to achieve the level of coordination necessary to reach convergence in the outcome of asylum decisi ons in the Member States. As regards the 
external dimension and related practical coop eration, an ad-hoc exch ange of information 
would continue through Commission-chaired expert meetings on resettlement. There 
would however be no infrastructu re to ensure structural s upport and coordination on EU-
wide resettlement activities. This is all th e more acute as the Co mmission is considering 
putting forward a proposal on a joint EU resettle ment scheme. One important part of this 
will be improved coordination among EU Member states. 
2.4. EU right to act  
The current legal basis for Community action in  the area of asylum policy is established 
in Article 63(1) and (2) TEC. These provisi ons state that the Council is to adopt 
“measures on asylum, in accordance with the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 and 
the Protocol of 31 January 1967 relating to th e status of refugees  and other relevant 
treaties ” and also “ measures on refugees and displaced persons ” in areas such as 
Member State responsibility, reception condi tions, refugee qualifi cation, granting of 
                                                
 
27 Communication by the European Commission COM (2005) 388 final on Regional Protection Programmes.  
 
EN 15   EN protection (including temporary protection) and balancing of Member States’ efforts in 
receiving asylum-seekers.  
As regard practical cooperation (in the fiel d of asylum), the current legal basis is 
established in Article 66 TEC, which states that the Council, acting in accordance with 
the procedure referred to in Article 67, sh all take measures to ensure cooperation 
between the relevant departments of the admi nistrations of the Member States in the 
areas covered by title IV (visas, asylum, immi gration and other polic ies related to free 
movement of persons), as well as betw een those departments and the Commission.  
2.5. Subsidiarity test  
Community involvement in the asylum field is founded on th e need for solidarity among 
Member States in addressing a challenge that, in an EU without internal borders, cannot 
be effectively dealt w ith by individual countries acting al one. This led to adoption by the 
Community legislator of the acquis  in the field of asylum, on the basis of specific 
dedicated legal bases en shrined in the Treaty.  
The need to act has already been assessed and established as regards the CEAS in recent 
impact assessment reports, and in particular in the impact assessment on the asylum policy 
plan28. 
There have been repeated calls from the European Council, the Council and the 
European Parliament to develop a CEAS. The institutions of the Union committed to improving implementation of the acquis  in the field of asylum and clearly expressed the 
view that strengthening practical cooperati on between Member States on CEAS is the 
best way to improve the situation.  
Due to the transnational nature of the probl ems related to international protection, the 
future support structure will be well placed to propose solutions under the CEAS to significantly reduce the differe nces and divergences between the implementation of 
national legislation. Regarding th e subsidiarity principle, jo int action and better practical 
cooperation within the future s upport structure is justified as a means to finding a joint 
solution to the problems described in this re port, which have proven to be irresolvable 
purely at national level.  
2.6. Proportionality test
 
Regarding the proportionality principle, once the need for joint action at EU level is 
acknowledged (see above, under subsidiarity), it is necess ary to assess how far EU 
measures should go and what mandate the fu ture support structure should be given by 
the European legislator.  
                                                 
28  See sec(2008)2029 and sec(2008)2030. 
 
EN 16   EN The future support structure will be fully anc hored in the CEAS. It will not be given any 
decision-making powers and will not replace the national asylum administrations. Its 
mandate will be limited to facilitating a nd strengthening all forms of practical 
cooperation between Member St ates relating to the CEAS. 
In view of the clear and limited mandate of the future support structure, setting up this 
new Community institutional structure will not preven t further national action.  
3. OBJECTIVES 
The objectives are set out in the table overleaf.  
 
EN 17   EN  
General 
objectives Specific objectives Operational objectives 
(outputs and effects) 
To reduce differences in implementing 
legislation, policies a nd operational practices, 
between Member States. To improve the capacity, knowledge and 
know-how of the different actors 
involved in the asylum process.  
To improve fair and 
more harmonised 
processing of 
applications for 
international 
protection 
throughout the 
Union  To reduce differences in the quality and content 
of Country of Origin Information and harmonise 
its collection, production and assessment. To improve the collection and the 
quality of Country of Origin Information 
and make this accessible to all Member 
States with a view to improving its 
interpretation and assessment. 
To reduce overburdening of some Member 
States. To improve 
solidarity and 
burden-sharing 
between Member 
States in the field of 
asylum To improve the capacity of Member States to 
handle asylum requests, including situations of 
mass influx of asylum seekers.  To support Member States to build 
capacity and support those facing 
particular pressures on their asylum 
system and reception capacity.  
To increase the successful resettlement 
of applicants for international protection 
outside of the EU. To better manage 
refugee flows to the 
EU by expanding 
the external 
dimension of the 
CEAS To enhance the implementation of aspects related 
to the external dimension of asylum, such as 
Regional Protecti on Programmes and 
resettlement. To strengthen protection systems in third 
countries. 
4. POLICY  OPTIONS 
In this chapter, two sets of  policy options are analysed.  
The first set of policy options sets out pot ential tasks and missi ons that a support 
structure may have (eight tasks and missions are described below under 4.1.). 
The other set of policy options  concerns the potential institutional organisation of the 
support structure to allow it to  operate optimally. Eight main  institutional options for 
establishing the support structure, which woul d fulfil the missions and tasks referred to 
under 4.1, are described under 4.2.  
4.1. Options for the tasks and missions of the future asylum support structure 
In view of the mandate given by the Eur opean Council to create the future support 
structure, and following the consultations of stakeholders organised during the feasibility 
study, a list of potential tasks to  be entrusted to the future support structure is divided as 
follows, in the interest of clarity. 
 
EN 18   EN The objective in defining all the tasks to be en trusted to the future support structure is to 
fully ensure that the standards in practical  cooperation related to CEAS will be improved 
throughout the Member States. No definition of  tasks could be understood as leading to 
lower standards in the asylum policy29.  
4.1.1.  Exchange of best practices 
This covers the identification and exchange of best practices , lessons learnt and activities 
which could contribute to a more uniform interpretation and implementation of asylum 
legislation and a more equal treatment of asyl um seekers in the different Member States. 
The support structure would draw on inputs provided by different stakeholders with 
relevant expertise (e.g. Member States , IGOs, NGOs, lawyers, case workers).  
These tasks are part of the core tasks cu rrently carried out by existing cooperation 
structures, such as EURASIL, GDISC30 and IGC31, and supported by the Commission in 
JLS Directorate General. 
4.1.2.  Support to monitoring and quality control  
This covers mechanisms to support monito ring and quality contro l to ensure a more 
uniform interpretation and implementation of  asylum legislation and a more equal 
treatment of asylum seekers in the different  Member States. According to the Treaty 
provisions that define the role and comp etences of the Commission, the Commission is 
responsible for enforcement, transposition a nd implementation of the CEAS legislative 
instruments. The support structure woul d therefore be limited to supporting the 
Commission in its task, in pa rticular by collecting informa tion and reporting on the state 
of transposition and implementation of the Di rectives in each of the Member States, by 
developing benchmarks and standards by which progress can be measured, by 
coordinating peer learning activities, whereby Member States are asked to evaluate and 
learn from their peers and by coordinating corrective actio n undertaken by the Member 
States. 
Monitoring and quality control by the Commissi on of the enforcement, transposition and 
implementation of the CEAS legislative instruments is today facilitated by the 
                                                 
29  See also Asylum Policy Plan in this respect.  
30 During the NL Presidency of the EU in July 2004, a Conferen ce was held in Rotterdam entitled ‘I mmigration Services Together in the New 
Europe’. The Conference was aimed at General Directors of Eur opean Immigration Services. During this conference it was conclude d that there 
was added value in face-to-face contact with European counterparts and the General Direct ors agreed to meet every year. A netwo rk was 
established in order to facilitate practical  cooperation. This network was named GDISC - General Directors’ of Immigration Serv ices Conference.  
 31 The starting point for the IGC was a conference held in May 1985 under the auspices of UNHCR to consider “The Arrivals of As ylum-Seekers 
and Refugees in Europe”. There were follow up discussions and se ven States decided to launch an informal consultative process t o study the 
challenges facing the asylum system and possible solutions. A c oordinator for the IGC was appoint ed within UNHCR headquarters i n 1987 as 
head of a unit responsible for the preparation of meetings of se nior officials. In 1990, this unit was reorganised as the IGC S ecretariat. In 1991, the 
Secretariat became an independent entity with  funding provided by States. At present, th ere are sixteen members of IGC: 10 EU S tates (Australia, 
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, the Neth erlands, Spain, Sweden, and th e United Kingdom), 2 non-EU countrie s: 
Switzerland and Norway, and 4 oversea countries : Canada, US, New Ze aland and Australia. 
 
 
 
EN 19   EN organisation of meetings of the Contact Committees32 established under the different 
instruments, but also via the discussions wh ich take place in the context of Eurasil, 
GDISC, and the IGC. The UNHCR33 also has a role to play in this regard.  
4.1.3.  Joint processing of asylum app lications at the EU level 
This covers the joint proces sing of asylum applications at EU level by the support 
structure on behalf of the Member States. This  could be limited to th e joint processing of 
certain asylum applications at EU level, for example those for Member States under 
particular pressure or those that Member Stat es consider highly complicated. At present, 
no such joint processing takes place. 
4.1.4.  Activities to improve the colle ction and quality of Country of  Origin Information (COI) / 
improve assessment of COI 
These tasks are part of the core tasks cu rrently carried out by existing cooperation 
structures, such as EURASIL, GDISC,  the IGC, the UNHCR and the Red Cross 
(Accord/ecoi.net34) and are supported by the Commission in JLS Directorate General.  
In light of the considerable work already undertaken in th is area by the Commission and 
other actors, and the wide range of existin g COI sources, the suppor t structure would be 
in charge of a large number of coordination tasks: 
- organising the management and maintenan ce of the COI portal, integrate existing COI 
in the portal and keeping it updated; - pooling existing information and expertise on a particular country of  origin and asylum 
thematic related issues available from actors on the ground (e.g. Member States, Commission, Commission delegations, UNHCR field office s, local NGOs); 
- coordinating fact-finding missions  by bringing together States w ith an interest in or are 
about to gather COI in a particular as ylum sending country to avoid overlaps; 
- enhancing the accessibility of COI and promoting its use (e.g. translation of 
documents); - coordinating and developing best practice exchanges, with a view to enhancing 
consistency of COI interpreta tion and developing guidelines  and benchmarks on how to 
interpret COI;  
                                                
 
32 As a basis for evaluation and to better c oordinate the implementation of the asylum measures as well as the measures adopted  on migration, the 
Commission organises a structured exchange of views on how Member  States implement and apply the legislation recently adopted t hrough the 
establishment of Contact Committees for each  of the relevant instruments. The Comm ission regularly convenes the Contact Committ ees which 
offer a platform for the exchange of views on the interpretation of the provisions of the Directives and the Regulations to fac ilitate the early 
identification of possible problems and questio ns and offer an opportunity to enhance th e value of the legislation through an a greed common 
interpretation and a common methodology of implementation.  
33 Quality initiative project See under 4.1.4 
34 The Quality Initiative Project (2004-2009) is based on the supervisory role of UNHCR under the 1951 Refugee 
Convention and its aim is to assist the UK Home Office in improving further the quality of first instance 
decision-making. On the basis of its audit, UNHCR has highlighted a number of causes for concern, 
focusing in particular on the application of the ref ugee definition, the approach to establishing the facts 
(‘credibility’) and the conduct of interviews.  
 
 
EN 20   EN - gathering information on the various policies implemented in the different Member 
States and on how judges, case workers a nd other decision-makers reach different 
interpretations of COI;  - creating an overview of the current init iatives to promote joint and/or similar 
interpretation of COI. 
4.1.5.  Pool of asylum experts 
The support structure could provide practical assistance to Member States with overall 
capacity and resource problems, for exampl e, by creating, managing, coordinating and 
deploying joint pools of interpre ters, translators and other experts. The following fields 
could be covered: 
- Interpreting; 
- Humanitarian assistance; - Assisting in the process of informa tion collection to support decision making; 
- Pre-screening;  
- Translating documents and  - Sharing information on interview techniques.  
The GDISC-led project creating an Interpreters pool
35 provides a good example of how 
to deal with capacity and resour ce-related challenges in situat ions of particular pressure. 
Another entity which can be mentioned is ENARO, which is an ‘inter-institutional linkage’ between European organi sations active in the area of the reception of asylum 
seekers
36. It facilitates cooperation in order to develop best practice models for the 
reception of asylum seekers and examine trends and developments in the profile and numbers of asylum seekers. As such, it par ticularly addresses the issue of how to deal 
with capacity and sudden pressure situations . The approach adopted to achieve these 
aims involves exchange programmes for sta ff and experts, evalua tions and activities 
aimed at identifying best practices. In addi tion, activities initiated on a more ‘ad hoc’ 
                                                
 
35 Twelve countries (UK, Germany, Ne therlands, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia , Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, 
Turkey, Bulgaria and Slovakia) indicat ed their interest in joining this project: UK, Germany, Norway and 
Netherlands volunteered to act as donor countries; Norway, Lithuania,  Latvia, Croatia, Czech Republic, 
Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria and Slovakia were to be th e beneficiaries. Norway was to act both as donor and 
as beneficiary in the project. 
 
36 Belgium: Fedasil; Czech Republic: Refugee Facilities Ad ministration; Denmark: Dani sh Red Cross; Finland: 
Ministry of Employment and the Economy; Ireland: Reception and Integration Agency; Italy: Central 
Service of the Protection System for asylum seeker s and refugees; Malta: Ministry for the Family and 
Social Solidarity; The Ne therlands: Centraal Orgaan opvang As ielzoekers; Norway: HERO Mottak og 
Kompetanse AS; Spain: Ministerio de Trabajo Y Asun tos Sociales Dirección General de Integración de Los 
Inmigrantes; Sweden: Swedish Migration Board; Switzerland: Bundesamt für Migration Abteilung 
Empfangs- und Verfahrenszentren; and, United Kingdom: Kent County Council Service for 
Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children. 
 
EN 21   EN basis are relevant for addressi ng problems in terms of bette r preparedness (e.g. exchange 
of information on a software system to manage reception capacities.)37  
4.1.6.  Intra-EU relocation 
In the Policy Plan on Asylum (Section 5.1.2.), the Commission indicates that “the best 
way to ensure a high degree of solidarity is  not to adopt a new overarching instrument 
on intra-EU relocation, but to put at the disposal of Member States a series of 
mechanisms, which will help them cope with  the variety of challenges they are faced 
with”. The Commission indicated during the discussion on the adoption of the Immigration and Asylum Pact (adopted in October 2008 by the Eur opean Council) that 
an assessment should be carried out of the potential impact of measures taken to 
facilitate the internal  relocation of beneficiaries of international protection. The study 
should assess, in particular, the nature and characteristics of mi gratory flows in the 
Member States concerned, the situation in the countries of origin and the risks of 
creating pull effects.  
This would imply that the support structure could manage and coordinate any future 
intra-EU relocation scheme which would en sure that a proportion of arrivals are 
transferred to other Member States, based on their capacity and willingness. It could support the scheme by, for example, deve loping guidelines on selecting people for 
relocation and identifying Member States inte rested in relocation. No such intra-EU 
relocation instrument exists at present. 
4.1.7.  Training and capacity building 
This would include providing training and cap acity building assistance to help Member 
States develop a joint asylum curriculum and provide training an d capacity building 
programmes for state officials and potentially a wider range of stake holders involved in 
the asylum process. The European Asylum Cu rriculum (EAC), which is currently being 
developed by GDISC, constitutes a key componen t of these activities, as it represents a 
prime example of the benefits that can be gained from EU practic al cooperation in the 
area of asylum. In addition, general and sp ecific expertise on, for example, torture 
victims and unaccompanied minors, is require d by national asylum administrations.  
Training national asylum service personnel is central to implementing the CEAS. 
Agreement on key principles of good practi ce for administrative aspects such as 
interviewing and decision making provides a firm basis for greater convergence in 
practice and administrative methods. 
                                                
 
37 According to Fedasil, which considers ENARO to  be a good initiative, it is key to learn from 
aspects that work well in othe r countries and build on existing experiences and know-how instead 
of ‘reinventing the wheel’.  
 
 
EN 22   EN The support structure would th erefore be in charge of: 
- managing the EAC (European Asylum Curriculum). The EAC project38 is led by 
Sweden under G DISC umbrella (which pr omotes operational cooperation between the 
Immigration Services responsib le for implementing immigra tion and asylum issues in 
Europe, see above under 2.2.1) and invol ves a range of governmental and non-
governmental bodies. The support structure would coordinate the development and 
promotion of EAC and ensure its sust ainability (financing and updating);  
- identifying training needs in Member States; 
- conducting capacity assessments of Member States; 
- mapping existing (general and specific) expe rtise in training and capacity building in 
Member States and - matching training and capacity needs with expertise and resources , and coordinating 
exchanges (e.g. study visits). 
It will organise general a nd specific training sessions, e.g. training targetin g a specific 
public (e.g. judges / case-workers)  or on specific issues (e. g. how to deal with EAC / 
treatment of vulnerable persons or un accompanied minors / access and use of COI 
portal)
39. 
4.1.8.  Activities linked to the externa l aspects of practical cooperation linked to the CEAS: 
resettlement and RPPs  
The Hague Programme called for the establishment of a joint resettlement programme in 
the framework of Regional Protection Progra mmes. In the Policy Plan on asylum, the 
Commission announced that it would propose an initiative  on this issue in 2009. The 
Commission is therefore committed to improving  and developing the external aspects of 
CEAS.  
The support structure could have an advisory and/or coordination ro le in developing and 
implementing Regional Protection Programme s and in developing and implementing 
resettlement schemes. 
                                                 
38 The EAC is a EU Member State initiative intending to enha nce the capacity and quality of the European asylum 
process as well as to strengthen practical cooperation among the European asylum/immigration systems. 
The cooperation between the Odysseus Academic Ne twork and the Swedish, Du tch, Czech and Spanish 
Immigration Services aims to create a European Asylum Curricu lum, which will provide common 
vocational training for employees of the Immigration and Asylum Services in Europe. This project is 
funded by the EU (ERF) and executed under the auspices of the General Directors’ Immigration Services 
Conference (GDISC). The European Commission sits on  its reference group. The EAC project update has 
been presented in Eurasil meetings, both at  the normal plenary and judges meetings.  
 
39 In addition to this, for example, the Red Cross have  developed several capacity building initiatives concerning 
COI, including the development of a training manual, organisation of seminars and query services (see Annex 3). EAC also contains a module to improve knowl edge and initial skills con cerning the role of COI 
in the context of refugee status determination 
 
EN 23   EN This would include, as regards RPPs  
- monitoring the progress of activities in RPP countries,  
- providing expertise and liaising with ot her stakeholders in order to ensure 
complementarity of activities. 
As regards resettlement, the support stru cture would have the following tasks: 
- drawing upon existing input fr om different bodies (e.g. St ates’ and NGOs views on the 
process and outcomes of twinning activitie s or EU-funded programmes; the discussions 
held in the Commission expert  group on resettlement and in the IGC workshop; research 
undertaken by UNHCR), with a view to expl oring joint positions and priorities; 
- storing the information in a central location (e.g. portal);  
- making this information available to a wide audience; - promoting active learning (e.g. e-lear ning, discussion forums, seminars). 
 
Some governmental and non-govern mental actors in the EU have been collaborating, 
largely in a limited or exploratory way, in th e area of resettlement. There has also been 
a launch of new 'twinning' activities betw een existing and new or prospective 
resettlement countries in the EU. The prim ary aim of twinning projects and other forms 
of information exchange is to build the cap acity of the national administrations, which 
in the near future may be responsible for the design and implementation of resettlement. Some actors are also actively sharing id eas on how to create  political will for 
resettlement
40. In addition to this, resettlement is also discussed in the IGC. Workshops 
on resettlement have been organised in whic h existing resettlement countries, such as 
the USA, share their experiences with EU  partners. The Commission has furthermore 
initiated an expert group on resettlement, whose purpose is to share best practices on 
resettlement and to discuss the results of th e different projects on resettlement, in order 
to make Member States which are not curre ntly resettlement countries familiar with 
resettlement and to examine which aspects EU cooperation on rese ttlement would be 
most fruitful. 
4.2. Options for the institutional format of  the future asylum support structure 
4.2.1.  Status quo 
No changes would be made to the current situ ation in relation to pr actical cooperation in 
the asylum field. Existing delivery mechanis ms, i.e. very limited number of staff in 
charge of practical cooperation41 within the unit dealing with asylum policy in 
Directorate General Justice, Freedom and Secu rity, would be maintained at the current 
level.  
                                                 
40  E.g. Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen; Amnesty International Germany. 
41   At present, AD staff dedicated to practical cooperation tasks in the Commission unit dealing with asylum 
policy: 1,5. 
 
EN 24   EN 4.2.2.  Strengthening the European Commission by  increasing human and financial resources 
The Commission would be responsi ble for the delivery of pr actical cooperation linked to 
the CEAS and would undertake th is internally, by setting up  a dedicated unit within the 
Directorate General for Justice, Freedom a nd Security. The unit would be managed by a 
Head of Unit, possibly assist ed by a Deputy Head of Unit and Heads of sectors, each 
managing small teams within the unit in charge of specific aspects of practical cooperation.  
The unit could be either integrated into the present directorate of the Directorate General 
currently dealing with as ylum and immigration policy or be under the direct 
responsibility of the Directo r-General to give it promin ent political visibility.  
4.2.3.  Creating a new network 
A new network would be created on the ba sis of a Council decision, for example under 
Article 66 TEC (practical coope ration). It would comprise a secretariat and receive a 
dedicated budget line for its activ ities. The secretariat would be responsible for the day-
to-day management of the network. The network would employ few staff at central 
level, but in order to ensure consistent national inputs, huma n resources could be 
allocated to national ‘units’ consisting of Member State authorities and / or other 
relevant bodies.  
The network would build on the existing netw ork structures and would not absorb any 
existing structures. It would be supported by a steering grou p (to be created) consisting 
of Member State representati ves and other relevant bodies  (e.g. UNHCR). This steering 
group would need to be coordinated by th e Commission. The network could either 
merge current relevant activit ies in the field of practical  cooperation, such as those 
carried out by EURASIL and GDISC, or coordina te such activities, thus acting as an 
‘umbrella’ network. Additional tasks and functions could be added gradually.  
The working method of the network would be the “ Open Method of Coordination”  
(OMC). Set up at the Lisbon European C ouncil of March 2000, the OMC provides a 
framework for political coordi nation without legal constraint s. Member States agree to 
identify and promote their most effective policies with the aim of learning from each 
others’ experiences. This is  a flexible and decentralised  method, which involves: (1) 
agreeing to common objectives which set out high-level, shared goals to underpin the 
entire process; (2) agreeing to a set of common indicato rs which show how progress 
towards these goals can be measured; (3) prep aring national strategi c reports, in which 
Member States set out how they will plan po licies over an agreed period to meet the 
common objectives; (4) Evaluating these st rategies jointly with the European 
Commission and the Member St ates. The OMC is e.g. used in the fields of Social 
Protection and Social Inclusion. It has never to date been us ed in the Justice, Freedom 
and Security fields.  
The Commission would be responsible for th e overall coordination and management of 
the network. 
 
EN 25   EN 4.2.4.  Creation of the European Asylum Support Office as a regulatory agency 
The European Asylum Support Office could be  a structure with the institutional and 
operational design of a regulator y agency. A European regulatory agency is defined as 
an independent legal entity created by the legi slator in order to help regulate a particular 
sector at the European level and help im plement a particular Community policy. By 
performing its tasks, it helps to improve the way in which the rules are implemented and applied throughout the EU
42.  
The legal basis for the office, to be esta blished through a regulat ion of the European 
Parliament and/or Council, could be Article  66 TEC (practical c ooperation) and/or 
Article 63 TEC (asylum policy). 
The European Asylum Support Office would have no decision-making powers . Its 
activities would involve measur es of an incentive nature, such as co-regulation, self-
regulation, recommendations, referral to the scientific authority, networking and pooling 
good practice, evaluating the applicati on and implementation of rules, etc43. 
Relationships with external bodies would be established, e.g. with UNHCR, external 
bodies (e.g. GDISC, ENARO …) and NGOs (e.g. ECRE, Red Cross). UNHCR would 
have a formally defined and strong role in  the regulation establishing the office.  
As far as financial rules are concerned, th e European Asylum Support Office would be 
created under Article 185 of  the Financial Regulation44. The financial basis for the future 
agency would be a dedicated Community budget line. The decision over its seat, not to 
be in Brussels or Luxemburg, would be ta ken by Heads of State and Governments. It 
could be situated in a new Member State45. 
The office would be managed by its Management  Board, composed of representatives of 
Member States and the Commission. The day-to -day management of the office would be 
entrusted to a Director, nominated by th e Management Board upon a proposal by the 
Commission. 
                                                 
42  See draft interinstitutional agreement on the operating framework for the European regulatory agencies 
(Com(2005)59.  
43  See draft interinstitutional agreement on the operating framework for the European regulatory agencies 
(Com(2005)59.  
44  Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 Ju ne 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to 
the general budget of the European Communities, OJ L 248, 16.9.2002, p. 1–48. See in particular article 185.1: 
“1. The Commission shall adopt a fram ework financial regulation for the bodies set up by the Communities and 
having legal personality which actually receive grants charged to the budget. The financial rules of these bodies may 
not depart from the framework regu lation except where their sp ecific operating needs so require and with the 
Commission’s prior consent.”.  
45  See conclusions of the representatives of the Member St ates on the location of the seats of certain offices 
and agencies of the European Union, 13/12/2003, OJ L 29/3.02.2004.  
 
EN 26   EN 4.2.5.  Incorporation of the support asylum st ructure into an existing regulatory agency 
For reasons of economies of scale, it coul d be envisaged that the activities to be 
entrusted to the asylum support structure  be merged into an existing or future regulatory 
agency.  
There are three sub-options:  
• merge into  FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency), 
• merge into FRONTEX (European Agency for the Management of Operational 
Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union),  
• merge into the future JLS IT Agency (Agency for the operational management of SIS 
II, VIS and EURODAC and other large-scale IT  systems in application of Title IV of 
the EC Treaty). 
These options are studied by the Commission in this impact assessment report, for the 
sake of completeness of this report, as s upplementary options to the ones that were 
envisaged by the stakeholders during cons ultations made in the context of the 
preparation of the asylum policy plan and consultations specifically carried out for 
preparation of this impact assessment report.  It must be emphasized  that no stakeholder, 
Member States or non-governmental organi sations consulted during the consultation 
process proposed these options.  
These three agencies are or will be regulatory agencies (see above under 4.2.4.).  
4.2.5.1.  FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency) 
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) was established by Council 
Regulation (EC) No 168/2007 of 15 February 200746. The Agency’s goal is to provide 
relevant institutions and authorities of the European Community and its Member States 
with assistance and expertis e on fundamental rights wh en implementing Community 
law, and to support them in taking measures  and formulating appropriate courses of 
action. The Agency is not empowered to exam ine individual complaints or to exercise 
regulatory decision-making powers. The Agency’s  specific areas of work are laid down 
in a five-year Multiannual Framework (D ecision (2008/203/EC), adopted by the Council 
after consultation with the European Par liament. The fight against racism, xenophobia 
and related intolerance is one of the main pr iority areas of the FRA. The Agency works 
closely with other institutions  and bodies, operating at both national and European level, 
and develops a fruitful cooperation with th e Council of Europe and civil society, for 
instance through the creation of a Fundamental Rights Platform. 
                                                 
46  OJ L 53/2 22.2.2007.  
 
EN 27   EN Should the FRA take over the tasks to be entrusted to the future asylum support 
structure, it would crea te a dedicated department for this  purpose. Since it is an existing 
agency, some of the existing horizontal depa rtments, such as administration, finance and 
procurement could be shared.  
Currently, the FRA is fully dedicated to information tasks and does not have experience 
in dealing with practical coopera tion in the field of asylum.  
Should the FRA be put in charge of the tasks to  be entrusted to the future asylum support 
structure, the Management Board would need to be reconfigured. The legal basis of the 
FRA, Article 308 TEC (implicit powers), coul d remain, but reference could also be 
made to Article 66 TEC (practical coopera tion) and/or to Article 63 TEC (asylum 
policy).  
FRA has its headquarters in Vienna (Austria). 
4.2.5.2.  FRONTEX (European Agency for the Ma nagement of Operational Cooperation 
at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union)  
FRONTEX was established by Co uncil Regulation (EC) 2007/200447. It coordinates 
operational cooperation between Member Stat es on managing external borders, assists 
Member States in training national borde r guards, including the establishment of 
common training standards; ca rries out risk analyses, follows up the development of 
research into control and surveillance of ex ternal borders, assists Member States in 
circumstances requiring increased technica l and operational assistance at external 
borders, and provides Member States with the necessary support in  organising joint 
return operations. It cooperates closely with other Community and EU partners 
responsible for the security of external borders, such as  EUROPOL, CEPOL, OLAF, the 
customs cooperation and the cooperation on phyt o-sanitary and veteri nary controls, in 
order to promote overall cohe rency. FRONTEX strengthens bor der security by ensuring 
the coordination of Member States’ acti ons to implement Community measures on 
managing external borders. 
Should FRONTEX take over the tasks to be entrusted to the future asylum support 
structure, it would crea te a dedicated department for this  purpose. Since it is an existing 
agency, some of the existing horizontal depa rtments, such as administration, finance and 
procurement could be shared. 
Currently, FRONTEX is fully dedicated to  illegal immigration and does not have 
experience in dealing with practical cooperation in the field of asylum.  
Should FRONTEX be put in charge of the task s to be entrusted to  the future asylum 
support structure, the Management Board would need to be reconfigured. It is currently 
                                                 
47  OJ L 349/25.11.2004. 
 
EN 28   EN composed of high level representatives of na tional administrations dealing with illegal 
immigration. 
The legal basis of FRONTEX could need ch anging, by adding the lega l basis of Article 
63 TEC (asylum policy), should this be consider ed as necessary to entrust it of full 
activities related to practical coope ration in the field of asylum.  
FRONTEX has its headquarter s in Warsaw (Poland). 
4.2.5.3.  JLS IT Agency (Agency for the operational management of SIS II, VIS and 
EURODAC and for the development and the management of other large-scale IT 
systems). 
The future Regulation being prepared by JLS ai ms to establish an Agency centred on the 
operational management of large JLS IT systems.  It will therefore be  responsible for the 
long-term operational management of th e second generation Schengen Information 
System (SIS II), the Visa Information System  (VIS) and EURODAC. It also aims to lay 
down the framework for developing and ma naging other large-scale IT systems in 
application of Title IV of the EC Treaty and Title VI of the EU Treaty. 
Should the IT agency take over the tasks to be  entrusted to the suppor t asylum structure, 
it would create a dedicated department fo r this purpose. Some  of the horizontal 
departments, such as administration, fi nance and procurement could be shared.  
The proposal for establishing the IT agency is due to be adopted by the Commission in 
January 2009. It will then be in the hands of the legislat or for adoption of the founding 
act establishing it. This IT agency, when created, will be a new regulatory agency and will face the difficulties inherent in sett ing-up and creating any new body from scratch. 
This may severely delay the setting-up of  the support asylum structure, whilst the 
European Council expressly called for its rapid establishment.  
This IT agency will be fully dedicated to technical IT management of large JLS IT-
systems. It will have no mandate as regards gathering information in the field of asylum, 
being a centre of European expertise on asylum (except management of IT JLS 
systems), networking and pooling good pract ice, evaluating the application and 
implementation of rules in the field of asylum policies. 
The legal basis for the IT-Agency would need  a change. The presen t legal basis covers 
Articles 62(2)(a), 62(2)(b)(ii), 63(1)(a), 63(3)(b) and 66TEC. As  far as asylum policy is 
concerned, the legal basis of the IT-Agency would have to be enlarged, since it is 
presently restricted to the aspects covere d by 63(1)(a) and 63(3)(b), should this be 
considered as necessary to en trust it of full activ ities related to prac tical cooperation in 
the field of asylum (question of choice of le gal basis for the support structure: article 63 
and/or article 66). 
The headquarters of the future IT Agency have not yet been decided.  
 
EN 29   EN 4.2.6.  Creation of a Common EU Support Authority (decision-making body) 
The Common EU Asylum Authority would be  a structure with the institutional and 
operational design of a regulat ory agency, created by second ary law (Regulation). Its 
financial basis would be a dedi cated budget line. It could in th e longer term fully lead all 
practical cooperation in the field of asylum, have responsibility for external action on 
behalf of the Member States and become  the single EU determining authority to 
effectively implement a common asylum proce dure for applications lodged in the EU, 
taking into account that the a cquis  would have been amended accordingly.  
5. IMPACT  ANALYSIS 
The report will attempt to iden tify the direct and indirect , short-term and long-term 
impact of the options. The social impact on asylum seekers are identified as the 
fundamental rights of asylum seekers which will be better protec ted, and their social 
integration in the Union (e.g. education, trai ning, access to work) will be improved. As 
regards the environmental impact, limite d impact could be identified if a new 
institutional structure is created outsi de Brussels. This would entail limited 
environmental pressure on the host town (new  office building to be  found / travelling of 
people from there to other places in Europe  where meetings would be organised). The 
most significant impact identified will be an alysed as regards the tasks entrusted to the 
support structure and in institutional terms.  
5.1. Impact of options for tasks and missi ons of the future support structure 
5.1.1.  Exchange of best practices 
These tasks are part of the core tasks cu rrently carried out by existing cooperation 
structures, such as EURASIL, GDISC a nd partially the IGC and supported by the 
Commission’s JLS Directorate General. According to the Commission, they therefore 
belong to the core tasks of the future support structure. There is a clear need to find ways 
in order to provide better quality inform ation, a more systematic and far-reaching 
exchange of best practice and greater syne rgy compared to the current activities taking 
place in multiple fora. A comprehensive approach and efficient coordination is needed. This situation could be improved by the supp ort structure taking a clear lead in the 
exchange of information and best practices. 
Stakeholders identified these tasks as im portant, all giving their strong support, in 
particular from existing cooperation structures  which are already seei ng the benefits of 
such exchanges as part of their own activiti es. The transfer of these tasks appears to 
enjoy full support from the Member States and European Parliame nt, thus it appears 
politically feasible. 
As these tasks are part of the core tasks of the future support struct ure, their costs would 
be medium to high. These costs would also c over the costs involved in providing support 
to monitoring and quality control (see under 5.1. 2.). In view of the ex tensive character of 
 
EN 30   EN these tasks, the costs must be therefore asse ssed as covering most of  the costs related to 
tasks undertaken by the support structure. Mo reover, the national i nputs to practical 
cooperation would initially cont inue to exist and gradually be reduced, due to greater 
efficiencies (for more details see under 5.2, co st analysis of the options in institutional 
terms).  
Exchanging best practices will allow the Member States to compare different practices 
with a view to retaining the best ones, and learning from each others. This should allow 
approximation of diverging practices and favour a better and more uniform 
interpretation and implementation of asylum  legislation and fully contribute to the 
general objective  of improving fair and more harmonised processing of applications for 
international protection through the EU. 
The detailed costs of these tasks are evaluate d in the financial tables contained in the 
annexes to this report as part of the cost -analysis report of the institutional options. 
These costs are assessed for each institutional op tion assessed in this report (six options 
assessed - see under 5.2 here be low in this report) under diffe rent items (risks and needs 
analysis / direct support / capacity buildi ng and training / pla nning, research and 
development) per group of tasks that require that kind of financial support. The costs for 
exchange of best practices appear under th e items risks and needs analysis / capacity 
building and training / planning, research and development, in view of the scope of their 
activities and the importance in these ta sks of the future support office.  
Entrusting these tasks to the support structur e would be likely to have a very positive 
impact on the evolution of the asylum acquis  and its practical implementation within the 
Member States and be a good level of feasibility.  
5.1.2.  Support to monitoring and quality control 
These tasks will allow the Member States to compare their practices , as well as the way 
of transposing and implementing the di fferent directives belonging to the acquis . It will 
help to inform the Commission’s preparation of legislative amendments or assist the 
Commission in its monitoring and evaluation role.  
This task received an overall high support le vel from the stakeholders consulted during 
the feasibility study. There were however some concerns over the definition of monitoring as a task. This task is closely li nked to other tasks, such as identifying 
continuing differences in legislation, po licies and practices and exchanging best 
practices.  
Exchanging best practices, to which this task is linked, should allow approximation of 
diverging practices, de facto  and de jure,  favour a better and more uniform interpretation 
and implementation of asylum legislati on and improve fair and more harmonised 
processing of applications for inte rnational protection through the EU.   
The detailed costs of these tasks are evaluate d in the financial tables contained in the 
annexes to this report as part of the cost -analysis report of the institutional options. 
 
EN 31   EN These costs are assessed for each institutional op tion assessed in this report (six options 
assessed - see under 5.2 here be low in this report) under diffe rent items (risks and needs 
analysis / direct support / capacity buildi ng and training / pla nning, research and 
development) per group of tasks that require that kind of financial support. The costs for 
exchange of best practices appear under th e items risks and needs analysis / capacity 
building and training / planning, research and de velopment, in view of the scope of the 
activities and their import ance in these tasks of the future support office. 
These tasks, fully linked to costs linked to  exchanging best practices, would entail 
medium to high costs. In view of the extensive character of these tasks, the costs must be 
therefore assessed as covering most of th e costs related to ta sks undertaken by the 
support structure. Moreover, national inputs to practical cooperati on would initially 
continue and gradually be reduc ed, due to greater efficiencies  (for more details see under 
5.2, cost analysis of the options in institutional terms).  
Entrusting these tasks to the support structure appears therefore to have a very positive 
impact on the evolution of the asylum acquis  and its implementation within the Member 
States, and a good level of f easibility. The monitoring and quality control which is 
today to some extent carried out in the c ontext of Contact Committees, Eurasil, the IGC 
and the UNHCR is not sufficiently thorough and systematic to meet the needs of the 
Commission and Member states in this regar d. Current oversight tends to be ad hoc in 
nature, and does not adequately  or quickly identify shortcom ings in the creation of the 
CEAS. The support office could adopt a more  comprehensive and timely approach to 
monitoring and quality contro l, including - for example - by carrying out studies or 
“peer reviews” aimed at identifying failure s or shortcomings in the adoption and/or 
implementation of legislation. In addition to this, adequate long-term financing of these 
tasks is also very important. 
5.1.3.  Joint processing of asylum applications at EU level 
Legally and politically, these tasks ca nnot yet be deemed to be feasible. 
As the way in which the CEAS in the Member States currently differs widely as regard 
its national implementation, it would be impossible to envi sage any joint processing 
before further harmonisation and approximati on of CEAS instruments, approximation of 
practices, common interpretati on of criteria and concepts  and implementation based on 
the same basis throughout the Un ion has been put in place. 
The European Council has made it clear that the support structure will not be a decision-
making body. Joint processing at the Europ ean level would therefore be legally 
unfeasible, as it would entail at least some aspects of joint decision-making at European 
level or giving some decisional power to the support structure on national requests for 
international protection .  
Legally speaking, as the support structure wi ll be created under secondary law, it can 
rely only on what is currently provided for in the present acquis.  The modifications 
 
EN 32   EN planned to revise the CEAS acquis  within the context of the second phase of CEAS do 
not allow for decisional power s to be entrusted to a suppor t structure at the European 
level.  
This option received low support from stake holders consulted during the feasibility 
study. The overall message from workshop partic ipants was that this  task is politically 
unfeasible for the time being. While some actors have expressed an interest in exploring 
or researching the issue of jo int processing, they have been  systematically discouraged 
by political considerations. Me mber States consider the pr ocessing of applications for 
international protection as an issue of national sovereignty.  
Notwithstanding the contribution this option could bring to the objectives defined under 
3., the Commission discards this option due to the very low feasibility given the current legal and political difficulties. 
The costs for this task do not appear in the financial tables contained in the annexes to 
this report as part of the co st-analysis report of the instit utional options as this task 
appears unfeasible.  
5.1.4.  Activities to improve the colle ction and quality of Country of  Origin Information (COI) / 
improve assessment of COI 
Overall high support was given to COI tasks,  both by Member States and other bodies. 
COI activities were deemed by stakeholders  and Member States to be of utmost 
importance for the future development of an approximated acquis in the field on asylum 
and a more uniform decision-making pro cess in the different Member States. 
COI tasks, and in particular the creation a nd management of the COI portal and related 
training activities, would impr ove the collection and the quality of Country of Origin 
Information and make this accessible to all Me mber States with a view to improving its 
interpretation and assessment. This woul d therefore help improve fair and more 
harmonised processing of applications for in ternational protection throughout the Union.  
The detailed costs of these tasks are evaluate d in the financial tables contained in the 
annexes to this report as part of the cost -analysis report of the institutional options. 
These costs are assessed for each institutional op tion assessed in this report (six options 
assessed - see under 5.2 here be low in this report) under diffe rent items (risks and needs 
analysis / direct support / capacity buildi ng and training / pla nning, research and 
development) per group of tasks that require that kind of financial support. The costs for 
activities related to COI app ear under title 2 of the fi nancial breakdown (building, 
equipment and infrastructure expenditure) in view of the fact that the COI portal will be an important IT system to be  managed by the future support structure and under title 3 of 
the financial breakdown (operati ons), under the items risks and needs analysis / capacity 
building and training / planning, research and development, as well, in view of the scope 
of these activities and their importance in  the tasks of the future support office. 
 
EN 33   EN These core tasks are currently  mainly carried out by a vari ety of existing cooperation 
structures, networks or intern ational organisations, including in particular EURASIL, the 
UNHCR, the IGC and the Red Cross (Accord/ecoi .net). While it is clear that efforts to 
improve the collection and qual ity of COI are currently bein g undertaken by a variety of 
actors, it would be very desirable to crea te a more common approach and to develop 
more efficient cooperation in order to avoid overlaps and provide cost effectiveness, 
synergy and better quality information. Common  training is needed for the collection 
and production of quality COI. Member Stat es also need better guidance and know-how 
in order to assess it, since they sometimes in terpret COI very differently. This, together 
with national differences in who legally qu alifies for international protection, may to 
some extent account for the diverging rec ognition rates across th e European Union. 
Improving the collection and quality of COI should go some way toward reducing these 
divergences in decision maki ng, and to that end the deve lopment by a support structure 
of common training, guidelines and access to the relevant COI (e.g. via an EU wide 
COI-portal) are needed. 
Entrusting these tasks to the support structure appears therefore to have a positive impact 
on the practical cooperation related to CEAS and a high level of feasibility. 
5.1.5.  Pool of asylum experts 
It appears difficult for a support structure at the European le vel to establish and manage 
internally a pool of asylum experts and other relevant professionals to address particular 
pressures in Member States. It  would be almost impossible for a structure at European 
level to cover all different le gislative / regulatory  national contexts and languages in the 
field of asylum. It must be recalled that, in the asylum field, a very high number of non-
European languages have to be covered. This  would entail significant numbers of staff 
in the support structure dedicated to these tasks, which is  impractical, given the priorities 
to be defined for the future Support structure as regards deliverables. This also raises 
concerns over the proportionality of this measure.  
Many stakeholders were in favour of this option but raised the point that a pool of 
experts could not be familiar with all different legislative / regulatory / linguistic contexts. In light of the curre nt stage of the CEAS and of the coordination nature of the 
tasks to be entrusted to the support structur e, the pool of asylum experts could help 
alleviate or share the burden of  Member States experiencing particular pressures on their 
national asylum system. 
Entrusting these tasks to the support struct ure appears therefore to entail (1) limited 
positive impact on the evolution of the asylum acquis  and its practical implementation 
within the Member States and (2) high costs di sproportionate to the goal to be attained. 
For this reason, given the proportionality of m easures to be taken and the scope of the 
missions to be entrusted to the future support structure, the support st ructure will have a 
coordination role (1) by gathering informati on from Member States  over their capacities 
and facilities and their avai lability, with a view to helping the Member States 
experiencing particular pressures on their na tional asylum system and allowing them to 
 
EN 34   EN ask for help and support from another Member State when necessary and (2) by 
supporting and organising the de ployment of expert teams in the affected Member 
States. The Member States e xpressed political support for th is light option. These tasks 
will, under the lightest and less costly way, help reduce overburdening of some Member States by helping Member States to cope with mass arrivals. 
The detailed costs of these tasks are evaluate d in the financial tables contained in the 
annexes to this report as part of the cost -analysis report of the institutional options. 
These costs are assessed for each institutional op tion assessed in this report (six options 
assessed - see under 5.2 here be low in this report) under diffe rent items (risks and needs 
analysis / direct support / capacity buildi ng and training / pla nning, research and 
development) per group of tasks that re quire that kind of financial support.  
Current cooperation in this field is limited and not well developed. There have been 
occasional initiatives by Member States, such  as, the above-mentioned interpreters pool 
project done under the auspices of GDISC. The objective of th e project was to set up a 
‘Rapid Capacity Team’ for interpreters, a ddressing particular pressures when needs 
arise. Certain countries act as  “donor” countries, sharing their interprete r capacity, and 
others are “beneficiary” countries
48. However, the scope of the pool has remained quite 
limited; to date only a limited number of inte rpretations have been carried out. There are 
also concerns about the sustainability of th e project and the availability of funding. The 
difficulties encountered by GDISC in creating a nd maintaining a sustainable pool of this 
kind illustrate why initiatives of this kind ar e better suited to be being coordinated by a 
permanent EU support structure with a stable funding base.  
5.1.6.  Intra-EU relocation 
This task received mixed scores from stake holders, mainly because the notion of intra-
EU relocation was considered as unclear.  
In view of the study to be launched by th e Commission on developing relocation within 
the Union, the support structure could at first have an advisory role to feed in the 
assessment and definition of re location measures or  proposals. It could in the longer 
term coordinate all exchanges of inform ation related to relocation and possibly 
coordinate any action linked to implementati on of initiatives. This would contribute to 
improving fair and more harmonised proces sing of applications for international 
protection throughout the Union and reduce overburdening of some Member States. 
                                                 
48 Twelve countries (UK, Germany, Ne therlands, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia , Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, 
Turkey, Bulgaria and Slovakia) indicat ed their interest in joining this project: UK, Germany, Norway and 
Netherlands volunteered to act as donor countries; Norway, Lithuania,  Latvia, Croatia, Czech Republic, 
Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria and Slovakia were to be th e beneficiaries. Norway was to act both as donor and 
as beneficiary in the project. 
 
EN 35   EN The detailed costs of these tasks are evaluate d in the financial tables contained in the 
annexes to this report as part of the cost -analysis report of the institutional options. 
These costs are assessed for each institutional op tion assessed in this report (six options 
assessed - see under 5.2 here be low in this report) under diffe rent items (risks and needs 
analysis / direct support / capacity buildi ng and training / pla nning, research and 
development) per group of tasks that re quire that kind of financial support.  
Entrusting these tasks to the support struct ure would appear likel y to have a positive 
impact on the evolution of the Member States’ action as regard relocation and consequently to the objectives  defined in this impact assess ment report. In view of the 
clearly limited role of the support structure over relocation, to be fully defined in the 
context of future measures to be adopted about relocation, the option appears to be 
feasible. Moreover, given that any such measures would involve relocating persons 
between Member States, entrusting a support function to an EU-wide support structure 
would seem to be consistent with  the principle of subsidiarity. 
5.1.7.  Training and capacity building 
There is overall high support from  stakeholders for these tasks. 
The stakeholders stressed that it would be important to take  stock of existing approaches 
at national and international level to tr aining, curriculum development (e.g. European 
Asylum Curriculum — EAC), etc, and appr oaches taken by NGOs. Organising general 
and specific training sessions, e.g. training targeting a speci fic public (e.g. judges / case-
workers …) or specific issu es (e.g. how to deal with EAC / treatment of vulnerable 
persons or unaccompanied minors / access and use of COI portal…), will improve the 
capacity, knowledge and know-how of the di fferent actors involved in the asylum 
process and therefore contribute  to an improved, fair and more harmonised processing of 
applications for international protection throughout the Union. 
The detailed costs of these tasks are evaluate d in the financial tables contained in the 
annexes to this report as part of the cost -analysis report of the institutional options. 
These costs are assessed for each institutional op tion assessed in this report (six options 
assessed - see under 5.2 here be low in this report) under diffe rent items (risks and needs 
analysis / direct support / capacity buildi ng and training / pla nning, research and 
development) per group of tasks that re quire that kind of financial support.  
Entrusting these important tasks to the suppo rt structure appears therefore to fully 
enhance practical cooperation on CEAS and have a very positive impact on the evolution of the asylum acquis  and its practical implementation within the Member 
States.  
There is currently little training provided in th e field of asylum .. Moreover, there is no 
comprehensive EU-wide approach to trai ning. Putting in place such EU-wide training 
would provide a very important support for th e needs of all Member States and for the 
creation of the CEAS. The EAC project, which is  currently still in the course of being 
 
EN 36   EN developed, is a good attempt to meet these ne eds. The project is well on the way, but 
has yet to be implemented or even tested, and does not cu rrently have adequate funding 
to provide the sustainability of the future EAC.  
5.1.8.  Activities linked to the externa l aspects of practical cooperation linked to the CEAS: 
resettlement and RPPs 
Member States and NGOs supported the idea of en trusting the task of resettlement to the 
support structure. Most stakeholders stresse d the need to cooperate with the UNHCR. 
The support structure could pr ovide added value by taking a coordination and advisory 
role. It could facilitate and coordinate the identification and exchange of best practices 
and lessons learnt.  
As regards RPPs, these tasks received overa ll low support from the stakeholders. Many 
actors preferred to await the results of the recent evaluation on RPPs to be conducted by 
the Commission in 2009 and the Council’s proposals on the next steps, if any. 
The Commission is however committed to improving and developing the external 
aspects of CEAS. As part of it, the extern al aspects of practi cal cooperation on CEAS, 
and in particular action to reinforce and improve work on resettlement and RPPs, will  
improve the successful resettlement of persons  in need of protection outside of the EU 
and strengthen protection sy stems in third countries.   
The detailed costs of these tasks are evaluate d in the financial tables contained in the 
annexes to this report as part of the cost -analysis report of the institutional options. 
These costs are assessed for each institutional op tion assessed in this report (six options 
assessed - see under 5.2 here be low in this report) under diffe rent items (risks and needs 
analysis / direct support / capacity buildi ng and training / pla nning, research and 
development) per group of tasks that re quire that kind of financial support.  
Entrusting these tasks to the support struct ure appears to have a positive impact on 
developing the external aspects of practical cooperation on CEAS. 
Stakeholders refer to problems in relation to  the efficiency, costs and effectiveness of 
resettlement programmes and projects due to  lack of EU coordination in this area. 
Attributing such a coordination role to the EU-wide support structure would resolve this 
problem, as it would clearly best be orga nised at the Community level, and would 
therefore be consistent with the principle of  subsidiarity. 
The number of EU countries engaged in rese ttlement remains low and the EU share of 
global resettlement efforts very modest. Furt hermore, the lack of  EU coordination of 
resettlement projects or programmes most  likely causes higher costs and lower 
efficiency. Each resettlement programme i nvolves a similar set of activities, such as 
interviewing refugees and assessing th e grounds upon which resettlement will be 
arranged and making travel arrangements from the host country. The national design 
 
EN 37   EN and implementation of resettlement programme s or projects result s in a duplication of 
efforts on the part of national administra tions, as well as for the UNHCR and NGOs, in 
the country of resettlement and of first asylum. Better c oordination of resettlement 
efforts would go some way toward minimising these inefficiencies. 
5.1.9.  Contribution of different tasks to the objectives 
All tasks assessed here above are assessed as  feasible and contri bute to the three 
objectives defined under (3). The task “joint pr ocessing of asylum app lications at the EU 
level” is discarded on account of its low legal and political feasibility.  
An assessment of the impact of options for the institutional form of the future support 
structure will identify which institutional body will be in the best position to fulfil most 
efficiently these tasks.  
5.2. Impact of options for the institutional form of the support asylum structure 
This impact assessment report contains an ex -ante financial analysis, which is obligatory 
under the financial regulation. Detailed aspects of this ex-ante analys is are set out Annex 
4 to this report with tables assessing the detailed costs under the following headings: 
Staff costs / Building, equipment and administ rative expenditure / Cost of operations.  
The following paragraphs study in depth the implications of choosing an institutional 
form for the support asylum structure. This st ructure will be entrusted with all the tasks 
which have been assessed as being feasible  (see under para. 5.1 here above). This report 
takes the view that all tasks need to be carried out by a si ngle support structure and that 
each institutional policy option will all cover the same range of tasks . This will in particular 
(1) allow an easier assessment as regard e ffectiveness of the s upport structure to be 
entrusted with a whole c oherent and linked tasks. 
(2) ensure coherence over a full mandate c overing all aspects of practical cooperation 
related to CEAS, in ways of working, insi de the structure and vis-à-vis the outside 
world, as this structure will be a single in terlocutor for all the tasks defined in its 
mandate,  
(3) allow economies of scale in working, as  a single body in charge  of all the aspects 
will be in a better position to assess priori ties and put its effort on the most important 
aspects of the different tasks in order to get quicker and better deliverables.  
(4) and avoid duplication of work and ta sks between different bodies, and possible 
difficulties of coordination between different  institutional bodies working in parallel 
over the same subjects.  
 
EN 38   EN 5.2.1.  Status quo 
Given the express request of the Eur opean Council to “es tablish in 2009 a European 
support office ”, this option can be discarded. 
5.2.2.  Strengthening the European Commission by  increasing human and financial resources 
This unit would have mainly (1) a role of  initiation of new practical cooperation 
activities and (2) a role of coordination for these practical cooperation activities (already 
on-going ones to be enhanced and future ne w ones). The existing practical cooperation 
structures already deve loped by the Commission (e.g.  EURASIL, EMN…) would 
continue to exist and function in the same wa y as present and their activities would be 
developed. Relationships with external bodies  would be reinforce d, e.g. with UNHCR, 
external bodies (e.g. GDISC, ENARO …) and NGOs (e.g. ECRE, Red Cross…). 
The political feasibility of the option  appears low given the scor es by the Member States 
during the consultation orga nised in the context of  the feasibility study.  
As regards the legal feasibility of the option , there are no obstacl es to reinforcing a 
Commission’s unit. The decision to establish th e unit would be an internal decision of 
the European Commission. The decision as well as the setting-up phase  could be swift.  
As regards its functional a nd practical effectiveness , the Commission would be in a 
position to steer the activitie s linked to practical coopera tion related to CEAS. An 
increase in staff in the Commission’s unit would however be fairly limited given the 
current strict limitation of Commission staff. An  increase in financial resources allocated 
to this unit would for the same reason be limited, given the blocked financial 
perspectives for the Community budget until 2013. 
It would therefore most likely only be possi ble to create a new un it comprising about 12 
members, mainly using existing financial res ources. In view of the diversity and volume 
of tasks to be entrusted to the support stru cture, the unit would qui ckly be overburdened 
and would not be in a position to deliver efficiently. On a positive note, the unit would have a strong Commission image, which ma y contribute to the active involvement of 
Member State representatives in the activities at expert level. 
The time needed to set up a new Commission’s unit
 would be very easy and quick and 
would take the form of a revised organi gramme to be adopted by the Commission.  
As regards cost-effectiveness , the financial costs to set up a practical cooperation unit 
within the Commission would range between 3 and 5.7 million euro with an estimated 
set-up cost of over 0.3 million euro. In the firs t year, the unit is thus estimated to cost 
around 3.3 euro, as it will include  start-up costs, an initia l round of recruitment and a 
relatively limited set of tasks and activities, which can gradually be increased. See 
detailed table of costs “EC Commission Unit”  in Annex 4 (ex-ante financial analysis).  
 
EN 39   EN It is estimated that the national inputs to  practical cooperation, estimated at around 6 
million euro, would initially continue a nd gradually be halved, due to greater 
efficiencies. The details are given in Anne x 5 (Table 5.6 “estimated FTE’s dedicated to 
transnational practical cooperation”).  
In terms of staffing numbers,  the unit would requ ire between 11 – 15 FTEs. This number 
of staff to be allocated to the Commission's unit is evaluated in view of the common size 
of an administrative unit within the Comm ission’s administrative  organisation. It is 
considered it would not be possible to creat e a stronger unit or a whole service dedicated 
to asylum tasks within the Commission in view of the current financial perspectives till 
2013 and current restrictions over Commission's staff. Add itional external resources 
could be procured. The unit would also have access to a funding stream from the 
European Refugee Fund.  
This option, though entailing pos itive aspects in terms of delivery and effectiveness, 
runs a high risk of failure on account of  the limited staffing numbers  and of the 
consequent risk of the structure getting quickly overburdened in view of the number and variety of tasks to be dealt with. It ca nnot therefore be deemed as a good option for 
establishing the support structure.  
5.2.3.  Creating a new network 
Regarding the political feasibility of this option
, it received mixed support by the 
Member States. Overall, a higher level of  political commitment would be given to a 
more stable structure to further practical cooperation, rather than to a structure highly 
dependent on inputs and output s from other structures. 
Regarding the legal feasibility of this option,  the network would be  established by a 
Council Decision, probably on the legal ba sis of Article 66 TEC (administrative 
cooperation). The feasibility might be reduced as  a result of the diffe rent legal statuses 
(or rather the absence of statuses) of some of the existing cooperati on structures and the 
extent to which these could sign up to an umbrella networ k and common work 
programme.  
Regarding its functional a nd practical effectiveness,  an umbrella network, made up of 
different existing cooperati on structures, could be sign ificantly hampered by low 
participation and complex management and or ganisational structures . On the other hand, 
the Open Method of Coordination, to be intr oduced as working met hod of the network, 
would ensure a bottom-up approach building on existing successful work and focusing 
on real needs and gaps. However, it must be recalled that th e Open Method of 
Coordination is unknown in the JLS sector . The use of the working method has been 
limited to specific sectors, such as the so cial sector. Moreover, the OMC excludes de 
facto the participation of the European Parl iament in the process. This is likely to 
significantly reduce the suppor t of the European Parl iament for this option. 
 
EN 40   EN However, the balance may tip in favour of participation as existing structures would 
receive both financial and technical support for implementing activities. Such support 
would be more continuous than current grants. 
Regarding the management of the structure,  an umbrella network of very different 
structures involving different t ypes of bodies could prove to be  very difficult to manage 
and coordinate practically and effectivel y. While a common work programme would 
surely increase commitment and lead to some synergies, it could pr ove very difficult for 
different existing cooperation structures to agree on a selection of activities and working 
methods. Disagreement may result in (severe)  obstructions to the functioning of the 
network. It would also require extensive work to identify the different roles and 
responsibilities of members of  the network and to make su re that they are fulfilled.  
Regarding the time needed to set up the network , it is likely to entail  delays. A proposal 
for an establishment decision should be made  by the Commission and then adopted by 
the legislator. For the network to be fully operational, regarding pa rticipation, existing 
cooperation structures may be resistant to th e concept of being gr ouped into a larger 
structure and find it difficult to convince their netw ork partners to stay  involved, as most 
are based on voluntary participation. In add ition, most existing structures will already 
have defined their work programmes for the ne xt 2-3 years. They may not wish to alter 
this, or stop some activities altogether, b ecause an umbrella network is created. Some 
may also be unable to make changes as funding would already be in place for certain activities. This would entail large delays of  up to a few years before the network is 
operational. 
Regarding the Commission’s support for the network
, the Commission would be most 
likely responsible for running the network. Th is would place a subs tantial burden on the 
Commission and require it to increase inputs  both in terms of human and financial 
resources in parallel to the creation of the network. The ne twork would therefore require 
substantial support from the Commission, to be estimated between 9-15 FTEs. Additional external resour ces could be procured.  
As regards cost-effectiveness
, the financial costs for establishing the network would 
range between 3.9 – 8 million euro with an es timated set-up cost of over 0.3 million 
euro. In the first year, the network is thus estimated to  cost around 3.3 euro, including 
start-up costs, an initial r ound of recruitment and a relativ ely limited set of tasks and 
activities, which can gradually be increased. See detailed table of costs “Network” in 
Annex 4 (ex-ante financial analysis).  
It is estimated that the nati onal inputs to practical coop eration estimated at around 6 
million euro, would initially continue and gradually be halved, due to some efficiencies made by the network. The details are given in Annex 5 (Table 5.6 “estimated FTE’s 
dedicated to transnational practical cooperation”).  
In terms of staff numbers, the network w ould include dedicated staff working in the 
contracted coordination unit, which could range from 5-15 FTEs. Additional external 
resources could be procured  or obtained through grants. 
 
EN 41   EN This option has a low degree of feasibility a nd practical effectiveness, on account of the 
difficulties the network would have for effec tive delivery (organisational structure and 
working method). Moreover, it entails subs tantial support from the Commission. It can 
therefore not be considered a good option for establishing the support structure. 
5.2.4.  Creation of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) as a regulatory agency 
The office would take over the activities on practic al cooperation currently dealt with by 
the Commission. It would absorb the exis ting Commission’s expe rt group EURASIL, 
which would become a full working group of the office. As far as its mandate is 
concerned, it would have a role of coordi nation and initiation of practical cooperation 
activities in the field of asylum. It would br ing technical support, e.g. being responsible 
for managing and developing the COI portal or  supplying necessary translations. It 
would be a centre of European asylum expe rtise, networking and pooling good practice 
and evaluating the application and implementation of CEAS rules.  
Regarding the political f easibility of the option , all Community institutions are presently 
in favour of this option. The Council, Euro pean Council and European Parliament 
reiterated many times since the Hague programme and in subsequent positions that they favour the option of a support office. The Commission indicated in the Communication 
“Regulatory agencies — The way forward” that an exception to the moratorium on 
creation of new regulatory agencies would be made in order to keep open the possibility 
of creating the support office for asylum, in th e form of a regulatory agency. It appears 
therefore that the creation of the Office is called for by all institutions. Upon a proposal 
of the Commission, the political commitment  of the Member States and European 
Parliament (budgetary aut hority) can therefore be considered as high.  
Regarding the legal feasibility of the option
, the Support Office woul d be established by 
a Regulation, which would make it an independent body  in the institutional form of a 
regulatory agency.  
The functional and practical effectiveness  of the office would be high, following these 
lines: 
• The structure of the agency would reflect a participatory approach, as it would be 
managed by its Management Board, with the Member States and the Commission as 
members.  
• Other stakeholders would be involved in the office through participation in working 
groups and consultative fora.  
• The work programme and budget of the support office would be decided by the 
Management Board. 
 
EN 42   EN • The office would be submitted to horizontal rules applicable to regulatory agencies 
on evaluation and controls49.  
• As far as evaluation is concerned, once th e agency has been set up, both it and the 
Commission will carry out regular evaluations  of its activities a nd operations. On this 
basis, the Commission may propose revisi ng or, where appropriate, repealing the 
basic act50.  
• As far as controls are concerned, budgetary co ntrol, internal audits, annual reports by 
the Court of Auditors, the annual discha rge for the execution of the Community 
budget and the investigations conducted by OL AF will make it possible to ensure, in 
particular, that the resources allocated to the agencies are put to proper use. 
Administrative control will ensure that a number of procedural safeguards are put in 
place so that account is taken of the interest s of interested parties and the quality of 
output51.  
With regard to the organisational structure of the Support Office, it would be preferable 
to create a reduced management board to en sure efficient management, or, if this is 
impractical, to set up an execu tive board in charge of the day-to-day management of the 
office, since a large management board could slow down decision-making and reduce 
the effectiveness of the Office. 
Regarding the time needed to set up the support office , it is estimated that it could be 
operational within one year of adopting the es tablishing act. Moreover, in view of the 
fact that the Commission would fully suppor t the new agency during the setting-up 
phase (see under “support of the Commission to the future structure”), it seems possible 
to reach this objective. Some precedents may be quoted, such as the European Chemical Agency (ECHA - Helsinki), that, with full support from the Commission became 
quickly operational.  
Regarding cost-effectiveness
, the financial costs to set up the support office would range 
between 10.3 – 17.6 million euro with an estim ated set-up cost of over 0.6 million euro. 
This is an estimated cost in view of the num ber of varied tasks to  be entrusted to the 
Support Office and in view of the fact that  the Support Office would from scratch take 
over important tasks linked to practical coope ration initiativ es already underway (e.g. 
transfer of EURASIL to the support office, COI portal ). With th is budget, the support 
office is expected to greatly improve and expand practical cooperation linked to CEAS, 
thus reducing current duplic ation, addressing gaps and e xpanding the overall scope of 
cooperation in this area.  
                                                 
49  See draft interinstitutional agreement on the operatin g framework for the European regulatory agencies, 
com(2005)59.  
50  See draft interinstitutional agreement on the operatin g framework for the European regulatory agencies, 
com(2005)59.  
51  See draft interinstitutional agreement on the operatin g framework for the European regulatory agencies, 
com(2005)59.  
 
EN 43   EN In the first year, the support office is estimat ed to cost around 6 million euro, (estimated 
start-up costs), an initial round of recruitmen t and a relatively limited set of tasks and 
activities, focused on the main priority tasks, which can gradually be increased. It is also possible that in the first year of its impl ementation, the office may cost less than the 
minimum running costs, as some time would be required for recruitment, development 
of operational procedures and selection of activities. However, as there are already a 
wide range of projects which could rapidly and either be taken over by the office and /or 
developed and implemented in the short term , the office would quickly require a higher 
level of resources. See detailed table of costs “EAS O” in Annex 4 (ex-ante financial 
analysis).  
It is estimated that the nati onal inputs to practical coop eration estimated at around 6 
million euro would initially continue and grad ually be reduced to a quarter, due to the 
fact that the support office will take over many tasks as regards practical cooperation. 
The final level of national support will be  very low, as the support office would 
effectively take over or finance most activitie s in the area of practical cooperation linked 
to CEAS and introduce greater efficiencies. Th e details of these na tional inputs are given 
in Annex 5 (Table 5.6 “estimated FTE’s dedicated to transn ational practical 
cooperation”).  
Regarding the Commission’s support for setting up a support office
, in terms of staffing, 
it would require the support of the Commi ssion of between 5 – 8 FTEs. This number 
would cover all Commission staff within th e Commission dealing with the agency, 
including horizontal services dealing with horizontal tasks linked to agencies (such as 
Directorate general responsible  for Budget / Legal Service / Internal Audit Service / 
Administration / Secretariat General) as well as sectoral services (Directorate general 
justice/liberty and security, JLS staff dedicated to asylum polic y). It should be noted that 
the support office, when created, will be a new regulatory agency and will face the 
difficulties inherent to setting-up a ny new institutional body from scratch. The 
Commission must therefore be  closely involved in setting up the support office, the 
rapid creation of which is expressly asked for by the European Council with a view to 
quick delivery and operational results. . 
The support office would theref ore require between 60-94 FTEs, in view of the number 
of different and varied tasks to be entrus ted to it (see paragraphs 4.1 and 5.1). This 
number appears to be reasonable in view of the current level of staff involved in 
different tasks in different existing bodies d ealing with practical cooperation related to 
CEAS. This number also involves economies of  scale in view of th e present duplications 
between tasks in those different bodies / st ructures and therefor e staff dealing with 
parallel tasks and missions. Additional external resources could be procured or obtained through grants. 
The support office appears well placed as regard s political and legal feasibility. Effective 
delivery of results can be expected. As regard s cost-effectiveness, the costs of creating a 
new agency may appear medium to high but gi ven the number of tasks to be covered by 
the support office and improvement in the pr actical cooperation li nked to asylum, the 
 
EN 44   EN costs appear reasonable. Moreover, in view of the important cuts in national resources 
for practical cooperation to be made as a result  of the activity of the support office, this 
option appears as a good one for the future support structure. 
5.2.5.  Incorporation of the support asylum st ructure into an existing regulatory agency 
For reasons of economies of s cale, the activities to be en trusted to the support asylum 
structure could be merged into an exis ting regulatory agency. There are three sub-
options (see description under 4.2.5):  
• merge into FRA;  
• merge into FRONTEX ;  
• merge into the future JLS IT Agency  
5.2.5.1.  FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency) 
Regarding the political feasibility of this option , the Council and European Council 
called for the creation of a specific dedicated support office, and not the incorporation of 
the future support asylum structure into an existing structure. This would also be in 
contradiction with the objective pursued by th e establishment of the Fundamental Rights 
Agency, which deals with all fundamental ri ghts issues and in contrast to the EUMC 
which was dedicated only to racism and xenoph obia. It must also be emphasized that no 
stakeholder, Member States or non-govern mental organisations consulted during the 
consultation process organised with a view to preparing this impact assessment report 
proposed such an option. For th ese reasons, the political feasib ility of this option appears 
low, even if asylum is a fundamental right.  
Regarding the legal feasibility of the option , the legal basis for FR A is Article 308 TEC. 
However, the Treaty already contains a specifi c legal basis for asylum policy (Article 63 
TEC) and practical cooperation (Article 66 TEC), which could be considered as 
necessary for entrusting to the Agency specific tasks as regards asylum.  
The functional and practical effectiveness  of the merger would be medium. There are 
some pros and cons to this option, as follows: 
• Some of the existing horizontal departme nts, such as administration, finance and 
procurement could be shared, producing ec onomies of scale, although the creation of 
a dedicated asylum department within the agency may still entail reinforcing these 
horizontal services within the agency. In  any case, the creation of an additional 
department would imply a new significant chan ge in terms of staff and organisational 
structure of the agency, which has onl y very recently been modified. FRA 
commenced operations only in March 2007. 
• FRA is a relatively small agency with a st aff of about 50 people. Should a dedicated 
asylum structure be merged into FRA, the nature and content of the core tasks of 
 
EN 45   EN FRA would be substantially altered and possibly create an imbalance within the 
newly established agency towards asylum task s. This could potentially be politically 
counterproductive as the FRA was been (rece ntly) created with the specific aim of 
promoting the full range of f undamental rights, with certain  priority areas referred to 
in the basic Regulation.   
• It would therefore be difficult to envisage  merging a new dedicated asylum structure 
of some 60-94 people (see above under para. 5.2.4) into the FRA without full-scale 
changes to its operation and mission dedi cated to data collection and related 
awareness-raising about fundamental rights. For this reason, the asylum department 
may be staffed by no more than 20-30 peopl e, without risking upsetting the balance 
within the agency and involve resistance with in the Agency as re gards the creation of 
this new department and new part of th e mandate. Such a limited number of staff 
dedicated to asylum tasks may however be  a barrier to the full effectiveness and 
positive impact of the support asylum structure merged into the FRA.  
• The FRA is fully dedicated to data collec tion and related awareness-raising  tasks 
and, as such, was not meant to develop experience in dealing with practical 
cooperation on asylum and related operationa l tasks. However, since its mandate 
focuses on Fundamental Rights, and the righ t to asylum is a fundamental right, the 
asylum tasks would be in line with the mandate. Politically, the stakeholders, in 
particular external stakeholders (IGOs a nd NGOs), may consider it to be a positive 
trend.  
• FRA does not have operational tasks and, if it  were to host an asylum department, it 
would need to acquire know-how and e xpertise on practical cooperation and 
operational tasks in the field of asylum po licy. This could entail delays in setting up 
the dedicated department and disrupt the current work of the FRA.  
• Should the FRA be placed in ch arge of the tasks to be entr usted to a specific support 
asylum structure, the Management and Executive Boards may need to be reconfigured, as it currently does not incl ude representatives of asylum national 
services. This would open a nother transitional phase for the Agency, which has just 
finished its institutional transformation process from EUMC to the Fundamental 
Rights Agency.  
Regarding the time needed to implement this option
, an estimation is at least 3/4 years, 
given the need to amend the establishing act of the FRA and the time needed after 
adopting this amendment to implement the new mandate (hire new staff / provide for the new organisation within the agency / adapt to new work).  
Regarding cost-effectiveness
, the financial costs for merg ing the support structure into 
the FRA would range from 6.6 – 12.1 million euro with an estimated set-up cost of over 
0.6 million euro. See detailed table of costs “FRA”  in Annex 4 (ex-ante financial 
analysis).  
 
EN 46   EN It is estimated that national inputs to pr actical cooperation, estimated at around 6 million 
euro, would initially continue and graduall y be reduced to a quarter, due to greater 
efficiencies in the work of the FRA. The fi nal contributions will b e  l o w ,  a s  t h e  F R A  
would effectively take over or finance most activities in the area of practical cooperation 
and introduce greater efficiencies. The detail s of these national inputs are given in 
Annex 5 (Table 5.6 “estimated FTE’s dedicated to transnational practical cooperation”).  
Regarding the Commission’s support for this option, in terms of staffing, it requires 
substantial involvement of the Commission in supporting the FRA’s development, in 
order to avoid any delay in achieving the asylum tasks. Merging asylum tasks into the 
FRA would therefore require the Commi ssion to dedicate between 5 – 8 FTEs. 
Commission staff includes speci alised staff dedicated to asylum tasks and horizontal 
tasks linked to agencies within the Co mmission, particularly regarding budgetary, 
staffing and audit issues. This  evaluation of the staff need ed for supporting the merge of 
the support structure is comparable to th e one needed for creation of the support 
structure under the form of a regulatory agency.  
The asylum department of the FRA woul d require between 29-46 FTEs. This would 
create within FRA a substantial new departme nt working exclusivel y on new tasks, with 
the risk of unbalancing the agency. 
This option may have a certain level of f easibility in political terms. However, the 
creation of an asylum department in the FR A entails the risk of institutional and legal 
complications and would require a new ad aptation phase for FRA. The option is 
therefore a medium one for establishing the sup port structure, as it ca n result in making 
it difficult for the agency to deliver what it has been expected to deliver at the time it 
was created and on the basis of its  current mandate and tasks.  
5.2.5.2.  FRONTEX (European Agency for the Ma nagement of Operational Cooperation 
at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union)  
Regarding the political feasibility of the option , the Council and European Council 
called for the creation of a dedicated suppor t office. For this reason, the political 
feasibility of this option is medium low. Moreover, the main focus of FRONTEX is to 
control legal immigration a nd to prevent illegal immigr ation and FRONTEX is not 
familiar with fundamental rights issues in gene ral, and in particular with the right to 
asylum and the protection of pe rsonal data. For that reason, the risk exists that entrusting 
FRONTEX with the tasks to be given to the support structure would not ensure that the 
objective is properly reached a nd it would therefore be politi cally problematic to merge 
an asylum department into FRONTEX. Fina lly, it must also be emphasized that no 
stakeholder, Member States or non-govern mental organisations consulted during the 
consultation process organised with a view to preparing this impact assessment report 
proposed such an option. For th at reason, the political feasibility of the option appears 
low.  
Regarding the legal feasibility of the option , the legal basis of FRONTEX already covers 
administrative cooperation (Artic le 66 TEC) but not asylum po licy (Article 63 TEC). In 
 
EN 47   EN view of the fact that the Tr eaty contains a specific legal ba sis for asylum policy, if the 
current legal basis were left unchanged, it coul d be legally disputed before the Court of 
Justice. Should the current legal basis of FRONTEX remain unc hanged, the agency 
would not, legally speaking, be  underpinned by the asylum acquis, should Article 63 
TEC be considered necessary to entrust it with all activities related to practical 
cooperation on CEAS.  
The functional and practical effectiveness  of the merger would be medium. There are 
some pros and cons as follows: 
• Some of the existing horizontal departme nts, such as administration, finance and 
procurement could be shared, producing econom ies of scale. However, the creation of 
a dedicated asylum department within th e agency would entail reinforcing these 
horizontal services within the agency. This would also imply a further change to the staff and organisational struct ure of the agency, which is  a relatively new and just 
past the setting up phase. 
• FRONTEX is a relatively small agency w ith a staff of about 70 people. Should a 
dedicated asylum structure be merged into FRONTEX, the content of the work of 
FRONTEX would radically change and possi bly create an imbalance within the 
agency towards asylum tasks. This ma y be politically c ounterproductive as 
FRONTEX was created with the specific pur pose of managing measures relating to 
the management of external borders. 
• It would be difficult to envisage merging a new dedicated asylum structure of some 
60-94 people (see above under para. 5.2.4) into FRONTEX without a full-scale 
change to its functioning and mission. For this reason, the asylum department should 
be limited to a staff of 20-30 people, to  avoid FRONTEX becoming an asylum 
agency and losing its focus on the management of external borders. Such limited staffing levels dedicated to asylum tasks mi ght be a barrier to full effectiveness and 
positive impact of the support asylum  structure merged with FRONTEX. 
• FRONTEX is fully dedicated to operational tasks linked to the management of 
external borders. It does not  have experience in dealing with practical cooperation in 
the field of asylum. Even if FRONTEX were  in a position to identify and assess 
clearly and effectively the needs for protectin g asylum seekers at the borders, in the 
context of mixed flows, it does not follow that it would be in a position to improve 
exchange of good practices (one of the object ives defined under 3) or achieve fair and 
more harmonised processing of applicati ons for international protection throughout 
the Union.  
• From a political point of view, the stakehol ders,  external stakeholders (IGOs and 
NGOs), but also some Member States and th e European Parliament may consider that 
entrusting tasks in the asylum  field to FRONTEX, an agency that mainly deals with 
controlling legal immigration and preventing illegal immigration, is  inappropriate and 
 
EN 48   EN potentially counterproductive. The political f easibility of this op tion appears therefore 
low.  
• If FRONTEX were to host an asylum depa rtment, it should ac quire know-how and 
expertise in this field, as they do not have  any for the time being. This could entail 
delays in setting up the dedicated depa rtment within FRONTEX and disrupt the 
current work of FRONTEX.  
• Should FRONTEX be placed in charge of the tasks to be entrusted to the support 
asylum structure, the Management Board w ould have to be fully reconfigured, as it 
currently include representatives of the national immigration services and does not 
include representatives of asylum nati onal services. Difficulties within the 
Management Board have to be foreseen as it may be problematic to take into account 
the different, if not diverging interests (ill egal immigration / asylum) which would be 
represented within the Agency.  
• The Director of the agency is nominat ed by the Management Board. Should the 
structure, members and functioning of the Ma nagement Board change  in line with the 
new asylum part of the agency, the nominati on of the present director could be called 
into question. The nomination of a new Director suitable for overseeing both interests to be represented in the agency could be  envisaged but may be problematic as it 
should take into account the different, if not  diverging interests (illegal immigration / 
asylum) represented within the Agency. This  may imply a difficult transitional period 
for the agency. 
• Regarding the time needed to implement this option
, an estimation is 3/4 years, given 
the need to amend the establishing act  of FRONTEX and the time needed after 
adoption of this amendment to implement the new mandate (hire new staff, provide for new organisation within the agency, adapt to new tasks).  
Regarding cost-effectiveness
, the financial costs for merg ing the support structure into 
FRONTEX would range from 6.6 – 11.9 million euro with an estimated set-up cost of 
over 0.6 million euro. See detailed table of costs “ FRONTEX” in Annex 4 (ex-ante 
financial analysis).  
It is estimated that national inputs to pr actical cooperation, estimated at around 6 million 
euro, would initially continue and gradually be  reduced to a quarter, due to efficiencies 
in the work of FRONTEX. The final level of contributions  will be low as FRONTEX 
would effectively take over or finance most activities in the area of practical cooperation 
and introduce greater efficiencies. The detail s of these national inputs are given in 
Annex 5 (Table 5.6 “estimated FTE’s dedicated to transnational practical cooperation”).  
Regarding the Commission’s support for this option, in terms of staffing numbers, 
FRONTEX would require betw een 5 – 8 FTEs of Commis sion staff. The Commission 
would have to be closely involved in s upporting FRONTEX’s development in order to 
avoid any delay in fulfilling the asylum ta sks. Commission staff includes specialised 
staff dedicated to asylum tasks and horizonta l tasks for agencies within the Commission, 
 
EN 49   EN in particular budgetary, staffing and audit issues. This evalua tion of the staff needed for 
supporting the merger of the support structur e is comparable to the one needed for 
creation of the support structure under the form of a regulatory agency.  
The asylum department of FRONTEX woul d require between 29-46 FTEs. This would 
create a new department working exclusively on new tasks with th e risk of unbalancing 
the agency. 
The option of merging the support asylum structure into FRONTEX scores low on 
political and legal feasibility, on account of the mandate of FRONTEX which focuses on controlling legal immigration and preventing illegal immigration. Moreover, creating an 
asylum department in FRONTEX entails the ri sk of ineffectiveness given the lack of 
experience of FRONTEX in ope rational asylum tasks. The option therefore scores low 
for establishing the support structure.  
5.2.5.3.  JLS IT Agency (Agency for the opera tional management of SIS II, VIS, 
EURODAC and other larg e-scale IT systems). 
Regarding the political feasibility of this option
, the Council and European Council 
called for the creation of a specific support office.   It must also be emphasized that no 
stakeholder, Member States or non-govern mental organisations consulted during the 
consultation process organised with a view to preparing this impact assessment report 
proposed such an option. For th at reason, the political feasibility of the option appears 
very low.  
Regarding the legal feasibility of the option , the legal basis of the IT Agency, as 
currently provided for in the Commission’ s proposal, covers part of the asylum acquis 
(Article 63(1)(a) and 63(3)(b)) and admini strative cooperation under Article 66TEC). 
However, the asylum acquis  is only partly covered. In view  of the tasks to be entrusted 
to the support asylum structure, the current  legal basis enshrined in the asylum field 
appears insufficient to cover th ese tasks. Should the present le gal basis of the IT Agency 
remain unchanged, the agency could, legally speaking, be disputed before the Court of 
Justice, should Article 63 TEC be considered necessary to entrust it with all activities 
related to practical cooperation on CEAS.  
The IT-Agency, in view of its mandate, will not be familiar with fundamental rights 
issues in general and in particular with the right to asylum and the protection of personal 
data. For that reason, the risk exists that entrus ting this agency with the tasks to be given 
to the support structure would not ensure th at the objective is properly reached and it 
would therefore be politically problematic to  merge an asylum department into it.The  
functional and practic al effectiveness  of the merger would be medium. There are some 
pros and cons, as follows: 
• Some of the existing horizontal departme nts, such as administration, finance and 
procurement could be shared, creating economie s of scale. However, the creation of a 
substantial, dedicated asylum department w ithin the agency would entail reinforcing 
the agency’s horizontal services.  
 
EN 50   EN • The IT Agency has an estimated staff of 120 people. Should a dedicated asylum 
structure be merged into it, the content of  the work of the agency could change and 
possibly create an imbalance within the agen cy towards asylum tasks. This would be 
politically counterproductive as the IT Ag ency will be created with the specific 
purpose of managing large-scale IT system s such as SIS II and VIS, not only 
EURODAC. 
• It would be difficult to e nvisage a new dedicated asyl um structure of some 60-94 
people (see above under para. 5.2.4) to be merged into the IT Agency without a 
wholesale change to its functioning a nd mission. For this reason, the asylum 
department should be limited to a staff of  20-30 people, to avoid the IT Agency 
becoming an asylum agency and losing its focus on the operational management of 
large IT systems. 
• The IT Agency will be fully dedicated to the operational management of large scale 
IT systems. It will have no experience in  dealing with practical cooperation in the 
field of asylum. The IT Agency will also be in charge of the operational management 
of the EURODAC database. However, this  technical support to the EURODADC 
system will not result in any positive im pact on practical cooperation, approximation 
and improving the exchange of good practices  (one of the objectives defined under 3) 
as it will be limited to managing the IT system.  
• The IT agency will have to be created from scratch. The large-scale IT systems might 
have to be moved to a new location (Stras bourg — France). This may entail delays 
during the setting-up phase. It  could be difficult for the ne w agency to begin activities 
in two very different fields of work at the same time, which may prevent the agency 
from becoming fully operational on both aspects of its mandate.  
• Politically, stakeholders could deem entrusti ng tasks in the asylum field to an agency 
dealing mostly with IT-systems in the field of border controls to be highly 
inappropriate. 
• Should the IT Agency be in charge of the tasks to be entrusted to the support asylum 
structure, the Management Board would have  to be reconfigured  as it currently does 
not include representatives of  asylum national services.  
• The Director of the agency is nominat ed by the Management Board. Should the 
structure, members and functioning of the Ma nagement Board change  in line with the 
new asylum department, the nomination of the director will have to take into account 
different, if not diverging interests (IT / Asylum) represented within the Agency. 
Regarding cost-effectiveness , the financial costs for merg ing the support structure into 
the future IT Agency would range from 6.6 – 12.3 million euro with an estimated set-up 
cost of over 0.6 million euro. See detailed table of costs “IT Agency” in Annex 4 (ex-
ante financial analysis).  
 
EN 51   EN It is estimated that national inputs to pr actical cooperation, estimated at around 6 million 
euro, would initially continue and gradually be halved, due to  potential efficiencies. The 
details of national inpu ts are given in Annex 5 (Table 5.6 “estimated FTE’s dedicated to 
transnational practical cooperation”).  
Regarding the time needed to implement this  option, setting up a new Agency dedicated 
to the operational management of large scale IT  systems is a long process. It is expected 
that the IT Agency should be legally es tablished in 2011 and should become fully 
operational in 2012. Further delays are, however , possible, given the length of decision-
making process before the legislator 
Regarding the Commission’s support for the option, in terms of staffing numbers, the 
future IT Agency would require at least 7 – 12 FTEs (see impact assessment of the IT 
Agency assessing the need for Commission support staff, 5-10 just to support the 
creation of the IT Agency). The Commissi on would have to be closely involved in 
supporting the IT Agency development to take  on asylum work, in order to avoid any 
delay in fulfilling asylum tasks. The Co mmission staff includes specialised staff 
dedicated to asylum tasks a nd the horizontal tasks for Co mmission agencies, particularly 
budgetary, staffing and audit issues. This ev aluation of the staff needed for supporting 
the merger of the support stru cture is comparable to the one  needed for creation of the 
support structure under the form of a regulatory agency.  
The asylum department of the IT Agency  would require between 29-46 FTEs, since it 
would be difficult to envisage merging a ne w dedicated asylum structure of some 60-94 
people (see above under para. 5.2.4) into the It -Agency without full-scale changes to its 
operation and mission. This would create a su bstantial new department within the IT 
Agency dedicated solely to new tasks, with  the risk of unbalancing the agency. Such a 
limited number of staff dedicated to asylum ta sks may however finally be a barrier to the 
full effectiveness and positive impact of the support asylum structure merged into the It-Agency.  
This option of merging the support structure in to the future IT Agency scores low on 
political and legal feasibil ity terms, on account of the mandate of the IT Agency 
dedicated to operational manage ment of large scale IT systems. Moreover, creating an 
asylum department in the future IT Agency entails the risk of ineffectiveness given the 
fact that the staff of the IT Agency will be composed to a large extent of IT specialists 
with no experience in asylum policies. A bove all, the setting up of a new Agency 
dedicated to the operational management of larg e scale IT systems is a long process. It is 
expected that the IT Agency  is legally established in 2011 and should become fully 
operational in 2012. This timeframe is not in line with the express request made by the 
European Council to establis h in 2009 a European support structure in the field of 
asylum. The option therefore scores low for establishing the support structure.  
5.2.6.  Creation of a Common EU Support Authority (decision-making body) 
This option can be discarded as the Asylum Plan impact assessment report assessed this 
option as politically and legally unfeasible.  
 
EN 52   EN 5.3. Respect of fundamental rights 
The provisions of the 1951 Geneva Conventi on and the European Convention on Human 
Rights, the evolving case law of the Europ ean Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the 
EU Charter of Fundamental Ri ghts are a constant referenc e point for Community action 
on asylum policy. Moreover, to the extent that the activities of the support asylum 
support structure may involve the processing of  the personal data of asylum seekers, it 
will be necessary that these activities comply with Direc tive 95/46, which lays down the 
legal framework to ensure the fundamental ri ght to the protection of personal data for 
any individual whose personal data is processed in the EU. The same goes for 
Regulation (EC) 45/2001, which concerns the processing of personal data carried out by 
the Community institutions and bodies.  
Asylum seekers and persons benefiting from in ternational protection are not EU citizens, 
which does not however preclude them fr om being covered by the EU Charter on 
Fundamental Rights, which contains the right to asylum and the protection of personal 
data.  
The support asylum structure will be in char ge of ensuring better practical cooperation 
on the CEAS instruments. The asylum regi me may therefore be applied in a more 
harmonised way throughout the Union, and reduce the current disparities in the recognition rates for certain na tionalities or groups of pe rsons requesting international 
protection. The current disparities between Member States create differences of 
treatment between asylum seekers and may poten tially lead in certain cases to violations 
of fundamental rights such as the right to asyl um (Article 18 of Char ter), equality before 
the law (Article 20 of the Charter) and non-di scrimination (Article 21 of the Charter).  
The support asylum structure, to be create d by the legislator with the purpose of 
improving practical cooperation related to the CEAS, will be able to contribute to allowing any persecuted forei gner to obtain aid and protec tion on the territory of the 
European Union in application of the Gene va Convention. Improving quality is in the 
interest of the Member States and asylum  seekers to implement fundamental rights 
within the Union. It is expected to have a pos itive impact as a result of exchanging best 
practices, collecting asylum data  to be used by the various  stakeholders and collecting 
and assessing COI, as these will all contribut e to a more harmonised approach. All this 
will also be achieved by ensuring close cont act and full cooperation between the future 
support asylum office and the Fundamental Rights Agency.   
6. PREFERRED
 POLICY  OPTION   
This impact assessment report carried out an individual analysis for each institutional 
option for the future support asylum structure (see above, paragraphs 4 and 5) assessing 
the available options. The major findings for th e eight options are compared in the table 
below. It must be noted that the criteria  “Achievement of objectives”, “Political 
feasibility” and “Implications for EU budget”  were considered as key for the final 
assessment of the options. 
 
EN 53   
ASSESSMENT  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
OPTIONS
 Achievement 
of objectives 
(functional and 
practical 
effectiveness)  
 
High (+++) 
to 
Low (- - -) 
 
 Time needed for 
implementation  
 
 
 
 
Short (+++) 
To  
Long (- - -) 
 Support needed 
from the 
Commission to 
the future 
(external) 
structure  
 
High (-- -) 
to 
Low (+++) 
 Legal feasibility  
 
 
 
 
 
 
High (+++) 
to 
Low(- - -) 
 Political 
feasibility  
 
 
 
 
 
High (+++) 
to 
Low (- - -) 
 Implication for EU budget  
(see detailed figures in financial annexes to this impact 
assessment report – Ex-ante financial analysis) 
 
 
 
 
 
 Overall 
Assessment  
 
 
 
 
Positive  
(+ to +++) 
Negative  
(- to - - - ) 
      Estimated start-
up 2010  Minimum  on-
going costs 2011  Maximum 
ongoing costs 
2011 onwards  
Option 1  
Status Quo  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 
Option 2  
COM’s 
Unit  
+  
++  
Non-
applicable  
+++  
- - 320.000 2.959.017 5.732.809 
  
+ 
Option 3  
Network  
- -  
-  
- -   
++  
+ 345.000 3.970.395 8.067.187 
  
- 
Option 4  
EASO   
+++  
+  
- -  
+++  
+++  
6.145.016 10.318.738 17.612 984  
++(+) 
Option 5  
FRA  
-  
-  
- -   
+  
+ 600.000 6.654.449 12.104.600  
- 
Option 6  
FRONTEX   
-  
-  
- -   
+  
- 600.000 6.654.449 11.940.342 
  
- - 
Option 7  
IT Agency   
- - -  
- - -  
- -  
-  
- - 600.000 6.818.706 12.331.105 
  
- - - 
Option 8  
Authority   
+++  
+  
- -  
- - -  
- - -- Non-
available Non-
available Non-
available  
- - - 
 
 
EN 54   EN On the basis of the above, from an instit utional point of view , the creation of a 
regulatory agency  as the institutional feature for th e future European Asylum Support 
Office appears to be the preferred policy option .  
The European Asylum Support Office appears the best option to enhancing practical 
cooperation on CEAS as regards the full set of  tasks to be entrusted to the support 
structure. Though it is the most expansive solu tion in financial terms, the creation of the 
support office under the form of a regulatory ag ency appears to be the preferred option, 
as it will be the best efficient as regards the achievement of objectives, and as it appears to have higher legal and political feasibil ity than the other in stitutional options. In 
particular, the office will have full support fr om the European Parliament and Member 
States for a quick adoption of the founding regulation. It will also have full support from 
the Commission's services for helping in a quick set-up of the office after adoption of 
the founding regulation by the legislator. It wi ll be an European independent centre for 
expertise in asylum at European level and wi ll help Member States become familiar with 
the systems and practices of others, to deve lop closer working relations between asylum 
services at operational level, build trust and confidence in each others’ systems and 
achieve greater consistency in practice.  
Costs of preferred option 
A detailed analysis of the costs of the pr eferred policy option is provided in Annex 4.  
7. MONITORING
 AND  EVALUATION 
The establishing act of the European Asylum Support Office will provide for all control 
mechanisms of a regulatory agency. 
- The establishing act of the Office will cont ain a clause to evaluate the Office. The 
agency will be submitted to an evaluation every 5 years. Following this evaluation, a 
review of the establishing act may be proposed by the Commission.  
- The Office will produce an annual report,  detailing the work carried out during the 
reference period.  
- The Office will produce an annual asylum  report, which will cover the following 
aspects, used as indicators for the activities of  the Office (to be laid out in detail by the 
legislator in the establishing act). 
 
EN 55   EN ANNEX 1:  
OVERVIEW OF STAKEHOLDERS CONSULTED DURING THE 
FEASIBILITY STUDY  
 
Table 1.1 Overview of stakeholders consul ted in the course of the assignment 
Name of organisation / 
Institute Contact person at 
org/instit. Position / role Interview 
conducted 
Jean Louis de Brouwer Director Directorate B   
Angela Martini Head of asylum team 
B2 Yes 
Lauri Holmen Policy officer asylum 
B2 Yes 
Gert Jan van Holk Policy officer asylum 
B2 Yes 
Stephen Davies Policy officer asylum 
B2 Yes 
Muriel Guin Head of unit B4 Yes  
Doede Ackers Policy officer B4   
Patrick Lefevre Ass. Programme 
Manager B4  European Commission, DG 
JLS 
Hendrik Silberstein Ass. Programme 
Manager B4   
European Commission, Secretariat General Françoise Comte Legal officer, 
Agencies, SG-E1 Yes 
        
Hubert Pirker MEP for EPP Yes 
Ms. Jean Lambert MEP for Greens  Yes 
Claude Moraes MEP Difficulties to 
arrange interview European Parliament 
Martine Roure MEP for PSE Difficulties to 
arrange interview 
 
EN 56   EN  
Baroness Sarah 
Ludford MEP Difficulties to 
arrange interview 
Mr. Giusto Catania MEP for GUE Difficulties to 
arrange interview European Parliament 
Jeanine Hennis-
Plasschaert MEP for ALDE -  Yes 
 
        
Madeline Garlick Senior European 
Affairs Officer  Yes 
UNHCR 
Blanche Tax  European Affairs 
Officer Yes 
        
ECRE Chris Nash Legal officer Yes 
        
CCME (Churches' 
Commission for Migrants in 
Europe) Dorish Peschke General secretary Yes 
        
Jesuit Refugee Service Europe Jan Stuyt Regional Director Yes 
        
Caritas Peter Verhaeghe Migration Officer Yes 
        
International Federation of 
Red Cross and Red Crescent 
Societies Andrea Jacober Coordinator Austrian 
Red Cross Yes 
        
IGC (Inter-Governmental Consultations on Asylum, Refugee and Migration Policies) Mike Bisi Deputy Coordinator Yes 
        
GDISC (General Directors of 
27 European Immigration 
Services) Peter Veld Chair Yes 
 
EN 57   EN         
EMN Stephen Davies Policy officer asylum 
B2 Yes 
        
Didier Mouton Representative of 
OFPRA, France to Eurasil Yes 
John Ryan Judge, representative 
of Ireland to Eurasil   
Wolfgang Bartsch Judge, representative 
of Germany to Eurasil Yes 
Mark Ockelton Judge, representative 
of the UK to Eurasil Yes 
Petr Hlavacek Representative of 
Department for Asylum and Migration Policy, Czech Republic  Yes 
Ziga Tomc Representative of 
Asylum section, Ministry of Interior, Slovenia Yes Eurasil 
Pawel Domanski Representative of 
Office for Repatriation and Aliens, Poland to Eurasil Yes 
        
The Netherlands       
Immigratie en 
Naturalisatiedienst (IND) Pete r Veld General Director Yes 
Ministry of Justice H.P. Schreinemachers Deputy Director, 
Policy division Yes 
Ministry of Justice Alexander Sorel Senior Advisor, 
Directorate for European and International Affairs Yes 
        
Vluchtelingenwerk Nederland Trees Wijn-Maatman Head of policy Yes 
 
EN 58   EN department 
  Stefan Kok Senior policy officer Yes 
    
Belgium       
Commissariaat voor 
Vluchtelingen en Staatlozen Dirk Van den Bulck Commissaris-Generaal Yes 
Federaal Agentschap voor de 
Opvang van Asielzoekers (Fedasil) Joan Ramakers Adjunct-directeur 
operationele diensten Yes 
Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen Pi eter Degryse Director Yes 
 Kathelijne Houben   
 Stefan Henau   
        
Italy       
Ministry of Interior Renato Franceschelli Prefect, Head of the 
Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration Yes 
 Alessandra 
Camporotta   
Dipartimento Immigrazione dell' ANCI Luca Pacini Head of Department Yes 
UNHCR (project in Lampedusa) Paolo Artini Regional Head of 
Protection Yes 
CIR Christopher Hein Director Yes 
        
United Kingdom        
Lin Homer Director and Chief 
Executive Yes 
Neal Barcoe Assistant Director, 
Asylum Policy, Border and Immigration Agency  Yes 
Home Office, Border and 
Immigration Agency 
  Mark Ockelton Judge, representative 
of the UK to Eurasil Yes 
British Refugee Council Helen Muggeridge  International Yes 
 
EN 59   EN Protection Policy 
Advisor 
        
Germany       
BAMF (Federal Office for 
Migration and Refugees, Federal Ministry of the Interior) Albert Schmid President of BAMF Awaiting written 
response 
DG Migration, integration, refugees and European 
harmonisation, Federal Ministry 
of Interior Gerold Lehnguth Head of DG Yes 
  Wolfgang Bartsch Judge, Representative 
of Germany to Eurasil Yes 
Amnesty Deutschland Julia Duchrow   Yes 
        
Sweden       
Swedish Migration Board Ulrik Åshuvud    Yes 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 
Department for Migration and Asylum Policy. Ola Henrikson Director-General Yes 
Caritas Sverige (works with refugee and social questions in Sweden)        
        
France       
Benoit Meslin Secretary General of 
OFPRA Yes 
OFPRA 
Didier Mouton Service of European 
Affairs and International cooperation, Division of Judicial and International affairs Yes 
Ministry of Immigration, integration, national identity and co-development Jean-Pierre Guardiola Chef du service de 
l’asile, Ministère de l’immigration, de l’intégration, de l’identité nationale et Yes 
 
EN 60   EN du codéveloppement 
  Didier Mouton Representative of 
OFPRA, France to Eurasil Yes 
Terre d'asile Pierre Henry Director-General Yes 
Forum Refugies France Charlet Project manager Yes 
 Mathieu Andre Unit Europe and 
International, promotion of asylum issues Yes 
        
Spain       
Ministry of Labour, Department 
for migrant’s integration, Social Intervention Unit Roberto Amurrio 
Inigo Deputy Director Yes 
Ministry of Interior, Office of Asylum and Refuge (OAR) Julian Prieto Hergueto Deputy Director- 
General for asylum Yes 
 Imaculada Vidal 
Torregrosa Documentation officer Yes 
CEAR Luisa Diaz   Yes 
        
Poland        
Marek Szonert Director of 
international cooperation Yes 
Pawel Domanski Representative to 
Eurasil Yes Office for Repatriation and 
Aliens Iwona Grudziaz COI Unit   
Caritas Poland Katarzyna Sekula   Yes 
        
Slovenia       
Ministry of Interior Nina Gregori Administrative Internal 
Affairs Directorate  Yes 
 
EN 61   EN Ministry of Interior, Eurasil 
representative Ziga Tomc Representative of 
Asylum section, Ministry of Interior, Slovenia Yes 
 
 
Table 1.2 Overview of participants to the second brainstorming workshop (11 
June 2008) 
Country Department / Organisation / 
Position Mr / 
Ms First name Last name 
CZ Unit for Policy and Analysis, 
Department for Asylum and Migration Policy Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic Ms Jaroslava  Posvarova  
CY Permanent Representation of 
Cyprus to the EU, Attache JHA Ms Mary  Epiphaniou 
DE Federal Ministry of Inte rior Mr Christoph Ehrentraut 
FI Ministry of Interior, Migration 
Department Ms Jutta  Gras 
FI Legal service and country 
information unit, Finnish immigration service, Director Ms Jaana  Vuorio 
FR Ministry of immigration, 
integration, national identity and development partnership, Deputy head of the asylum department Ms Odile  Cluzel 
FR OPFRA, Head of Service Mr Didier  Mouton  
NL GDISC Mr Bert  van Hoorn 
NL GDISC Mr Joel  Schoneveld 
 
EN 62   EN Table 1.2 Overview of participants to the second brainstorming workshop (11 
June 2008) 
MT Policy Development 
Directorate Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs Ms Alison  Gatt 
MT Ministry for Justice and Home 
Affairs Ms Rachelle  Cortis  
SL Permanent Representation of 
Cyprus to the EU, Asylum and 
Migration Assistant Ms Natasa  Globocnik 
UK  UK Home Office Mr  Neal  Barcoe 
NA UNHCR, Regional 
Representative Ms Judith  Kumin 
NA UNHCR, EU Policy Officer Ms Blanche  Tax 
NA ECRE, Head of Advocacy & 
Development Unit Ms Patricia  Coelho  
NA ECRE, Advocacy Officer Ms Anne  Peeters  
NA European Commission, DG 
Justice, Freedom and Security Mr Gert Jan  van Holk  
NA European Commission, DG 
Justice, Freedom and Security Mr Lauri Hollmen 
NA European Commission, DG 
Justice, Freedom and Security Ms Francoise Comte 
NA GHK Ms Petra van Nierop 
NA GHK Ms Hanne Beirens 
NA GHK Ms Katarina  Granath 
 
 
EN 63   EN ANNEX 2: STATISTICAL DATA  
 
2.1. Trends in asylum applications and decisions in EU  
Table 2.1 – Overview of numbers of as ylum claims by country and year 
Countr
y 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 
EU 27 197,41
0 (p) 234,6
75 (p) 276,675 
(p)344,8
00421,47
0424,1
80406,58
5380,4
50 313,6
45:
EU 25 196,53
0 (p) 233,4
90 (p) 275,145 
(p)342,5
95417,58
5419,4
70403,46
5377,4
35 311,5
75:
EU 15) 178,64
0 (p) 210,4
85 (p) 238,070 
(p)306,4
10385,42
5375,4
50379,53
0352,9
65 295,8
45242,8
45
Austria 13,350 
(p) 22,46
0 
(p) 24,635 (
p)32,36
039,355 30,12
518,285 20,13
0 13,80
56,720
Belgiu
m 8,870 
(p) 12,57
5 (p) 12,400 (
p)13,58
518,800 24,50
542,690 35,78
0 21,96
511,79
0
Bulgaria 500 (p
) 700 (p
) 985 (p) 1,320 2,890 2,430 1,755 1,350 835 370
Cyprus 4,540 
(p) 7,715 
(p) 9,675 (p) 4,405 950 1,620 650 790 225 :
Czech 
Republic 2,730 
(p) 3,590 
(p) 5,300 (p) 11,40
08,485 18,09
58,790 7,355 4,085 2,110
Denmar
k 1,960 2,280 3,235 4,390 5,945 12,51
010,345 6,530 5,700 5,100
Estonia 5 (p) 10 (p) 10 (p) 15 10 10 5 25 25 -
 
EN 64   EN  
Finland 2,275 
(p) 3,595 
(p) 3,575 (p) 3,090 3,445 1,650 3,170 3,105 1,270 970
France 30,750 
(pr) 49,73
5 
(pr) 58,545 (
pr)59,77
0 (r)51,085 47,29
038,745 30,90
5 22,37
521,41
5
Germany 21,030 
(p) 28,91
5 
(p) 35,605 (
p)50,56
571,125 88,28
578,565 94,77
5 98,64
5104,3
55
Greece 12,265 
(p) 9,050 
(p) 4,470 (p) 8,180 5,665 5,500 3,085 1,530 2,950 4,375
Hungar
y 2,115 
(p) 1,610 
(p) 1,600 (p) 2,400 6,410 9,555 7,800 11,50
0 7,120 :
Ireland 4,240 
(p) 4,305 
(p) 4,265 (p) 7,485 11,635 10,32
510,940 7,725 4,625 3,880
Italy 10,350 
(p) 9,345 
(p) 9,630 (p) 13,70
516,015 17,40
015,195 18,45
0 13,10
01,890
Latvia 10 (p) 20 (p) 5 (p) 5 25 15 5 20 35 :
Lithuan
ia 145 (p
) 100 (p
) 165 (p) 395 365 425 305 145 160 240
Luxem
bourg 525 (p
) 800 (p
) 1,575 (p) 1,550 1,040 685 625 2,930 1,710 435
Malta 1,270 
(p) 1,165 
(p) 995 (p) 455 350 155 160 255 160 70
Netherl
ands 14,465 
(p) 12,34
5 
(p) 9,780 (p) 13,40
018,665 32,58
043,895 39,27
5 45,21
534,44
5
Poland 4,225 
(p) 5,240 
(p) 7,925 (p) 6,810 5,170 4,480 4,660 3,060 3,425 3,580
Portuga
l 130 (p
) 115 (p
) 115 (p) 115 245 235 225 305 355 250
Romani
a 380 (p
) 485 (p
) 545 (p) 885 1,000 2,280 1,365 1,665 1,235 1,425
Slovaki
a 2,850 
(p) 3,550 
(p) 11,395 (
p)10,30
09,745 8,150 1,555 1,320 505 645
 
EN 65   EN Sloveni
a 500 (p
) 1,550 
(p) 1,090 (p) 1,050 650 1,510 9,245 745 335 70
Spain ,295 (
p) 5,050 
(p) 5,365 (p) 5,765 6,310 9,490 7,925 8,405 4,935 4,975
Sweden 24,320 
(p) 17,53
0 
(p) 23,160 (
p)31,35
533,015 23,50
016,285 11,22
0 12,84
09,680
United 
Kingdo
m 28,320 
(r) 30,84
0 
(p) 40,625 (
p)60,04
5103,08
071,36
580,315 71,16
0 46,01
532,50
0
(:) Not available (p) Provisional value (r) Revised value Source: Eurostat 
 
2.2 Recognition rates in the EU  
TABLE 2.2. RECOGNITION RATES (%) IN THE EU FOR 6 COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN 
(2006) 
  Afghanistan DRC Eritrea Ethiopia Iraq Iran 
 Procedure Recognition 
rate (%) 
 Recognition 
rate (%) 
 Recognition 
rate (%) 
 Recognition 
rate (%) 
 Recognition 
rate (%) 
 Recognitio n
rate (%) 
 
Austria FA 84    73 78 
Belgium FI 19 29   13 24 
 AR  6   20 12 
Bulgaria FI 24      
Cyprus AR      8 
 FI     81 12 
Denmark FI 14    2  
Finland FI     63  
France AR  13     
 FI  8   23 25 
 RA  100     
 
EN 66   EN Germany NA 23 11 35 8 8 16 
 RA 97 86 96  82 78 
Greece FA 2   2  2 
Ireland AR 19 2    17 
 FI  12   51 7 
Italy FA 67  85 79   
Malta FI   70 5   
Netherlands FI 45 61 78 58 19 33 
Poland FI 38      
Portugal FI 42      
Spain FI  8     
Sweden FI   64  90 29 
UK FI  20 54 21 13 17 
NA=New Applications; FI=First instance decisi ons; AR=Administrative Review decisions ;
RA=Repeat/reopened applications ; FA=Including first instance and appeal/review decisions 
The followin g countries did not have reco gnition rates for the sele cted countries of ori gin: Czec h
Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuani a, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia 
 
Source: UNHCR, 'Asylum applications and re fugee status determination by origin and 
country/territory of asylum',  http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendoc.pdf?i d=478ce34a2&tbl=STATISTICS) 
2.3. Resettlement   
Table 2.3.1 – EU share of refugees resettled worldwide 
 
Table 2.3 – EU share of refugees resettled worldwide 
Year Total number of refugees 
resettled worldwide Arrivals 
(persons) to EU 
Countries Total EU intake 
(%) 
2003 27,338 2,441 8.9 
 
EN 67   EN 2004 42,008 3,469 8.3 
2005 38,507 3,130 8.1 
2006 29,560 3,697 12.5 
2007 49,868 3,935 7.9 
Source: UNHCR, 31 October 2008 
 
Table 2.3.2 Approximate Capacity of Rese ttlement Countries in 2008 (number of 
individual places allocated for resettlement)   
UNHCR Working Group on Resettlement 
Geneva, 15 October 2008 
 
Approximate Capacity of Resettlement Countries in 2008  
(number of individual places allocated for resettlement) i 
Country of 
Resettlement UNHCR 
Submissions Private 
Sponsorship NGO 
Submissions In Country 
Processing ii Family 
Reunion iii Total 
Argentina 50 0 0 0 0 50 
Australia 6,500 iv 7,000 v 0 limited 0vi  13,500 
Brazil 150 0 0 0 0 150 
Canada 6,140 vii  3,300 – 4,500 160 1,200 viii 0 10,600-12,000 
Chile 112 0 0 0 0 112 
Denmark 500 ix 0 0 0 0 500 
Finland 750 0 0 0 0 750 
France 400 x 400 xi 0 0 0 800 
Iceland 25-30 0 0 0 0 25-30 
Ireland 200 0 0 0 0 200 
Netherlands 500 0 0 0 0 500 
New Zealand 750 xii 0 0 Up to 300 xiii 300 1,050 
Norway  1,200 xiv 0 0 0 0 1,200 
Paraguay  15 0 0 0 0 15 
Portugal  30 0 0 0 0 30 
Sweden  1,900 0 0 0 0 1,900 
United Kingdom  750 0 0 0 130 xv 880 
Uruguay  15 0 0 0 0 15 
 
EN 68   EN USA  56,750 0 0 6,550 6,700 70,000 
Totalxvi 76,242 12,200 160 8,050 6,830 103,182 
 
Czech Republic: In 2008 the Czech Republic has taken about 38 persons and is finalising its 
programme to establish an annual quota.  
 
Table 2.3.3 Main features of EU resettlement programmes 
Table 2.4 – Main features of EU resettlement programmes 
 Denmar
k Finland Swede
n UK Ireland The 
Netherla
nds Portugal France  
Start of 
official 
program
me 1978 1979 1950 2003 1998 1977 2007 2008 
Quota in 
2007 1500 (3 
year) 750 
(yearly) 1900 
(yearly) 500 
(yearly) 200 
(yearly) 1500 (3 
year) 30 *100* 
Largest 
groups of 
refugees 
in 2007 Congoles
e (DRC), 
Burmese, 
Burundia
ns Burmese, 
Iranians 
and 
Somalis Colomb
ians, 
Afghan
s, 
IraniansCongoles
e (DRC), Ethiopians, Burmese, 
Mauritani
ans Iranian 
Kurds Burmese, 
Ethiopian
s Subsharia
n 
Africans, 
Eritreans, 
Ethiopian
s N/A 
Resettlem
ent 
criteria Protectio
n needs, 
integratio
n 
potential Protectio
n needs, 
Cf, 
UNHCR 
criteria 
for 
resettlem
ent, 
condition
s to 
receive Protecti
on 
needs Protectio
n needs Protecti
on 
needs, 
majorit
y on 
legal 
and 
physica
l 
protecti
on Protectio
n needs, 
integratio
n 
potential, 
humanitar
ian 
considera
tions  N/A N/A 
 
EN 69   EN Table 2.4 – Main features of EU resettlement programmes 
 Denmar
k Finland Swede
n UK Ireland The 
Netherla
nds Portugal France  
and 
integrate 
in FI grounds 
In 
country 
selection
52 Roughly 
400 
(yearly) 650 Roughl
y 850 Yes Around 
160 400 
(yearly) N/A N/A 
Dossier 
selection
53 Roughly 
100 
(yearly) 100 
(urgent 
and 
emergenc
y) Remain
ing 
quota 
places No Vulnera
ble 
cases or 
20% of 
quota 100 
(yearly) N/A N/A 
Urgent 
and Emergen
cy
54 75 100 300 No No Yes (no 
fixed number 
set) N/A N/A 
Status 
upon 
arrival Tempora
ry 
residence 
permit Permanen
t 
residence 
permit Perman
ent 
residen
ce 
permit Permanen
t 
residence 
permit Perman
ent 
residen
ce 
permit Revocabl
e 
residence 
permit  N/A 
Source: ICMC, Welcome to Europe! A guide to  resettlement: A com parative review of 
Resettlement in Europe. 
                                                 
52 States travel with a delegation of govern ment officials to the country of asylum fr om which they have planned to resettle refu gees, to conduct 
individual interviews with refugees and their dependants, on the basis of which a decision of acceptance or refusal is made.  
53 The case of the refugee is reviewed in the same manner as during a selection mission but no i ndividual interview with the refu gee takes place. 
The decision is based solely on a paper su bmission by UNHCR that consist primarily  of the Resettlement Registration Form.  
54 Selection of candidates is almost invariably done ‘on paper’ as  time constraints and safety reasons may not allow for a select ion mission.  
 
EN 70   EN ANNEX 3:  
INFORMATION ON PRACTICAL COOPERATION RELATING TO COI 
Sharing country of origin information (COI) 
Article 4 of the Qualification Directive requires  that the assessment of an application for 
international protection should ta ke into account all relevant f acts as they relate to the 
country of origin. This should include laws a nd regulations of the country of origin and 
how they are applied. Article 8 of the Asyl um Procedures Direct ive requires Member 
States to ensure that precise and up-to-date  information is made available to personnel 
responsible for examining applications and taking decisions. This includes information 
from UNHCR on the general situation in countries  of origin or transi t of applicants for 
asylum. 
Member States’ asylum authorities collect a nd analyse information on the socio-political 
situation in countries of orig in through different sources. This information is generally 
referred to as Country of Origin Informati on (COI). The sources include general public 
sources, such as reports from UNHCR, the US Department of St ate on Human Rights, 
NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, national and 
international media, bi-later al contacts in countries of origin and embassy reports.  
Member States’ authorities also organise fact-finding missions when on-the-spot data 
collection or a more reliable and efficient approach appears to be necessary. Some 
administrations also specialise in collecting information on individual cases where this is 
necessary to decide on a specific case. 
Current cooperation 
Different fora for cooperation and exchange of information on COI have developed to 
address the need to share information. Inform ation fora exist on an international level 
(IGC, A8, UNHCR’s Refworld ) and also on an informal bilateral level. At EU level, 
asylum practitioners exchange views on COI at Eurasil,  which was established by the 
Commission in July 2002 as a network for as ylum practitioners. Th e participants who 
primarily attend these meetings represent EU  Member State authorities responsible for 
the adjudication of asylum applications in EU  Member States (at first instance and also 
from appeal bodies). UNHCR, other intern ational or non-governmental organisations 
and experts on certain issues ha ve frequently attended Eurasil. 
Eurasil  has provided a forum fo r exchanging COI and best practices among EU 
Member States, asylum adjudicators a nd the European Commission. Sessions on 
particular Countries of Origin comprise presentations from Member States with a 
particular interest in that country as well as field repres entatives from Member States 
and international organisations. The activities also help practitioners  to enhance working 
 
EN 71   EN relationships with each other. Eurasil has done important prep aratory work, but its 
current working methods do not provide the means for a structural follow-up. The legal 
and political imperatives given by the adoption of the Qua lification Directive and the 
Asylum Procedures Directive make clear that  a more systematic approach to COI is 
required. 
The ARGO financial programme has produced examples of c oncrete joint action on COI 
between several Member States. Under AR GO 2003, two projects were funded which 
supported fact finding missions  to third countries with significant refugee producing 
situations. Those projects should serve as a model for future missions and their findings 
would be shared among all 27 Member States. 
How to achieve joint compilation, assessment and application of COI 
The practical needs of Member States in the COI field vary greatly. Some Member 
States have invested heavily in this area a nd run sophisticated COI systems while others 
retain more basic systems or rely on the se rvices of NGOs or UNHCR. The need for all 
Member States to apply COI in the same way and using, if possible, the same sources is 
inherent in the logic of the Co mmon European Asylum System. 
Ensuring access to the same COI sources is the first challenge. To this end, the 
establishment and development of an EU ‘common portal’ for accessing COI sources 
should be the key initial activity for the EU in  aiming for the joint approach called for in 
the Hague Programme. Joint compilation, assess ment and application of COI in support 
of the Common European Asylum System means that Member States should have 
access to a common repository of COI that is assembled in compliance with common 
standards and principles.  
The creation of EU-wide Common portal for COI 
The first step in this process, which will be key to the future structure to support ongoing 
cooperation in the field of asylum (possi bly EASO=European Asylum Support Office) 
to be developed under the EC Treaty, is to establish an easily accessible common entry 
point for existing information. This is to be achieved by creati ng a one-stop ‘common 
portal’ through which all Memb er States authorities coul d access all official COI 
databases.  
Also available via the ‘common portal’ will  be the legislation of each Member State 
transposing the Community legal instruments which are central to the Common European Asylum System plus Community legislation, relevant national and EC case 
law, information produced by th e Commission’s external servi ces on specific countries 
and other official sources of information.  
A ‘common portal’ provides a useful additiona l resource, particularly for those Member 
States with less well developed COI resource s. Time is saved by accessing key official 
databases through one stop rather than s earching and downloading individually from 
different sites. The ‘common portal’ will most likely be, at the beginning, simply a 
 
EN 72   EN gateway to existing information on COI, possi bly without any agreed  standards for such 
information. Nevertheless, it will represen t a first step toward s the common approach 
envisaged in the Hague Programme as it can provide a platform on which a future EU 
COI database could be built. 
The Commission carried out a feasibility st udy into the creation of a Common EU COI 
portal in 2007. After identifying Member State needs and the official databases used by 
Eurasil States (BE - Globe, CH - Mila, DE - Milo, IE, AT in connection to Accord) and 
some international organisations (UNHCR - Refworld, Red Cross – Accord and IGC) 
the Commission paved the way to develop a suitable IT solution to establishing a 
common portal in 2009 (indicative timetable). A p ilot project to find the "best" prototype 
for the portal is underway and will be finalise d before the end of 2008. It is intended that 
the "construction phase " will then begin and that th e portal can become operational 
within 12-18 months of th at phase being initiated.  
Common Guidelines on the production of COI 
In parallel, another step would be to form ally agree on guidelines on the production of 
COI. Experience in the framework of Eurasil has shown that standards vary widely in the collection and verification of COI am ong Member States, but that there is 
nevertheless scope for agreement on at le ast a set of common basic principles.  
An ARGO project undertaken by five Eurasil States developed a set of "common 
guidelines for processing COI" in 2008, and th e Commission can at a later stage propose 
common basic principles on the production of  COI. Such principles would address 
issues such as transparency, cross-checking and citation, as well as training COI researchers and conducting fact-f inding missions. The applicatio n of these principles to 
Member States’ own COI is the first st ep towards the longer term objective of 
harmonised application of COI in line with the Hague Programme objectives.  
Addressing translation challenges  
A pragmatic solution needs to be found to the translation difficulties facing Member 
States. Some Member States’ courts can acce pt COI that is not translated into the 
language of the Member State; some insist that everything admitted to the court should 
be translated into the language of the Member  State. There are also practical difficulties 
for COI practitioners in r eading and understanding divers e COI sources. It is not 
practical or feasible to undert ake a comprehensive translati on of all relevant COI into 
English and then into al l 20 Community languages.  
The Eurasil COI -experts can advise on how to  prioritise translation needs and on what 
needs to be translated. If this can be achieve d on a small scale, using available financial 
resources, to address needs or help ease the burden in those Member States facing the most difficulties, then a larger and more ambitious undertaking will be examined when 
deciding whether to set up an EU COI data base (this has not yet been agreed to 
politically).  
 
EN 73   EN The EU COI Database 
In order to achieve the ambitious objective of a common Asylum Pro cedure, it will be 
necessary to ensure that Member States can not only access the same information but also that that information is produced and applied in a harmonised way. Therefore, once the portal is operational and guidelines for producing COI formalised, the time could be 
ripe to move to a fully-fledge d EU COI database, if there is  political agreement. This 
obviously entails serious resource implica tions and large scale IT and technical 
requirements to set up and maintain such a system. The establishment and maintenance 
of an EU COI database woul d clearly be the province of a future structure set up to 
support practical cooperation in the field of asylum. The financial and technical 
implications of taking this step  will need to be examined.  
 
EN 74   EN ANNEX 4: EX- ANTE FINANCIAL ANALYSIS  
(EXCEL TABLES ) 
Detailed cost analysis for 
- EC Commission Unit 
Category Specification Estimated 
start-up costs  Minimum 
ongoing costs  Maximum 
ongoing costs  Comments 
Title 1 - Staff 
costs           
Director Not applicable       No director required 
Senior / 
technical staff Commission staff 
Estimated between 7 - 9 FTEs  NA                  
714.068                   
918.087  Staff comprises both human resources within 
the unit itself as well as financial staff, control and auditing staff, etc. 
Administrative and other support staff Commission staff 
Estimated between 4 - 6 FTEs  NA                  
248.990                   
373.486  Staff comprises both human resources within 
the unit itself as well as administrative and support staff from other units within the DG. 
Staff benefits Estimated 15% of 
total staff costs  NA                  
144.459                   
193.736    
Staff training Estimated at 500 
per FTE  NA                       
5.500                        
7.500    
Title 2 – 
Building, 
equipment and 
administrative 
expenditure           
Information 
technologies / data-processing Database 
development and maintenance, 
computer software 
and related updates, etc. 
COI portal                   
250.000                  
250.000                
1.000.000  This heading mainly comprises the 
development and maintenance of the COI portal. It covers also other computer systems 
to be developped. Some elements are already 
covered by the EC overall budget. COI portal The exact costs of the portal cannot be estimated without additional research. Its development and maintenance could be (partly) outsourced. 
Infrastructure Not applicable 
      Infrastructure is covered by the overall EC 
budget 
Equipment                     
20.000                       
1.000                        
5.000  Start-up costs mainly relate to the purchasing 
of specific hardware to host the COI portal. 
Ongoing costs relate to regular updating of this 
equipment. Additional expenses for video-conferencing. 
Overheads Not applicable       
Overheads are covered by the overall EC 
budget 
Title 3 – 
Operations Possible core 
tasks         
Coordination unit Not applicable         
Risk / needs 
analysis Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring and 
quality control 
Resettlement Intra-EU relocation  NA                  
250.000                   
500.000  Identification of risks and needs under the 
different tasks, supported by analytical work. The Commission could outs ource part of these 
activities to existing networks or contractors. 
Direct support Resettlement 
Intra-EU relocation  NA                              
-                     
100.000  Inputs to resettlement scheme. The latter 
inputs are unlikely to happen in the short term 
and would only be minimal. Advisory role to the intra-EU relocation scheme, a task which is not likely to happen in the short term. 
 
EN 75   EN Capacity 
building / training Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring and quality control Joint production of 
COI  NA                  
150.000                   
400.000  Organisation and facilitation of exchanges, 
peer learning and information sharing. Organisation and facilitation could be outsourced in part to existing networks or contractors. 
Planning, research and development Exchange best 
practices Support to 
monitoring and 
quality control Joint production of COI Intra-EU relocation  NA                  
250.000                   
500.000  Data collection, research, analysis to support 
the risk / needs analysis and capacity building elements of these tasks. 
External relations Liaison and 
cooperation with external actors  NA                  
100.000                   
250.000  Inputs to liaison and cooperation with third 
countries, IGOs, other cooperation structures and EU bodies (e.g. participation / organisation of meetings, preparation of briefing materials, etc). Under these Policy options the costs remain high as the 
cooperation structures all continue to exist. 
Information, 
communication and 
dissemination Development of 
information, communication and 
dissemination 
strategies, tools and products.                   
50.000                  
100.000                   
200.000  Development and implementation of a strategy 
and methodological tools, website, brochures and other documents. 
Start-up costs relate to drafting of strategy and 
tools. 
Events, 
meetings and 
missions Meetings Eurasil 
(8-12 for 50 
persons) Organisation of events (5-10 for 50 persons) Missions (15-25 
missions of 1 
person)  NA                  
745.000                
1.285.000  The Commission would fund the meetings of 
EURASIL. In addition, it would organise events 
to promote peer learning, good practice and information exchanges, etc. and to convene specific working / expert groups. Finally, it could finance missions of experts or staff. 
Total                   
320.000               
2.959.017                
5.732.809    
Financing Financing stream  
Financing stream 
providing grants to practical cooperation, as 
part of the ERF 
Community Actions  NA               
2.000.000                
5.000.000  This heading relates to additional activities that 
could be financed, for example in case of particular pressures or burden in certain Member States. The unit could be involved in decision making of the financial unit as to the 
allocation of funding. 
 
- Network 
Category Specification Estimated 
start-up costs Minimum 
ongoing costs Maximum 
ongoing costs Comments 
Title 1 - Staff 
costs           
Director Not applicable  NA      No director required 
Senior / 
technical staff Commission staff 
Estimated between 5 - 7 FTEs  NA           510.049           714.068  Staff comprises both human resources within 
the unit itself as well as financial staff, control and auditing staff, etc. 
Administrative and other support staff Commission staff 
Estimated between 4 - 6 FTEs  NA           248.990           373.486  Staff comprises both human resources within 
the unit itself as well as administrative and support staff from other units within the DG. 
Staff benefits Estimated 15% of 
total staff costs  NA           113.856           163.133    
Staff training Estimated at 500 
per FTE  NA              4.500              6.500    
Title 2 – 
Building, 
equipment and 
administrative 
expenditure           
 
EN 76   EN Information 
technologies / data-processing Database 
development and maintenance, computer software and related updates, etc. 
COI portal            250.000           250.000        1.000.000  This heading mainly comprises the 
development and maintenance of the COI portal. It covers also other computer systems to be developped. Some elements are already covered by the EC overall budget. COI portal 
The exact costs of the portal cannot be 
estimated without additional research. Its development and maintenance could be (partly) outsourced. 
Infrastructure Costs for renting 
office space to host 
the coordination 
unit           15.000            20.000            50.000  It is assumed that the coordination unit would 
rent a specific office space in the vicinity of the 
Commission. Costs increase depending on the 
requirements for this space (e.g. availability of meeting rooms). Start-up costs relate to renovation / preparation of the space. 
Equipment Purchasing of 
equipment, furniture and specific computer hardware           30.000              3.000            10.000  Start up costs relate to setting up the office 
and to purchasing of hardware for the portals / databases, video-conferencing, etc. Ongoing costs relate to regular updating of this equipment and furniture, etc. 
Overheads    NA            35.000           105.000  Overheads are not calculated on the FTEs 
above, as they would be incurred by the coordination unit. They are therefore set as 7% of the contracted value of this unit (see below). 
Title 3 – 
Operations           
Coordination unit Costs for 
contracting a coordination unit NA 
         500.000        1.500.000  Contracting of a coordination unit to provide 
technical assistance to the Commission. The costs variations relate to differences in the work programme of the network and the task package of the unit. 
Risk / needs analysis Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring and quality control Resettlement  NA           200.000           400.000  Identification of risks and needs under the 
different tasks, supported by analytical work. Part of these activities could initially be outsourced to / taken forward by existing cooperation structures and gradually being integrated in the network. 
Direct support Resettlement  NA                   -              50.000  Inputs to resettlement scheme. The latter 
inputs are unlikely to happen in the short term and would only be minimal. 
Capacity building / training Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring, quality control and enforcement 
Joint production of 
COI Training and capacity building  NA           300.000           750.000  Organisation and facilitation of exchanges, 
peer learning and information sharing. Preparation of guidelines and needs assessments.  Delivery of training and capacity building exercises 
Organisation, facilitation and delivery could be 
outsourced in part to existing networks or contractors. 
Planning, 
research and 
development Exchange best 
practices 
Support to monitoring and quality control Joint production of COI 
Training and 
capacity building  NA           350.000           6 00.000  Data collection, research, analysis to support 
the risk / needs analysis and capacity building 
elements of these tasks. Development of training methods and courses (including e-learning). Part of these activities could initially be outsourced to / taken forward by existing 
cooperation structures and gradually being 
integrated in the network. 
External relations Liaison and 
cooperation with external actors  NA           100.000           250.000  Inputs to liaison and cooperation with third 
countries, IGOs, other cooperation structures and EU bodies (e.g. participation / 
organisation of meetings, preparation of 
briefing materials, etc). Under this Policy option the costs remain high as most cooperation structures continue to exist. 
Information, communication and dissemination Development of 
information, communication and dissemination strategies, tools and products.           50.000           100.000           200.000  Development of a strategy and methodological 
tools, website, brochures and other documents. Start-up costs relate to drafting of strategy and tools. 
 
EN 77   EN Events, 
meetings and missions Meetings EURASIL 
(8-12 for 50 persons) Meetings with Steering Group (8-12 for 30 persons) 
Meetings with 
Consultative Committee (4-8 for 20 persons) Organisation of events (10-15 for 
50 persons) 
Missions (15-25 missions of 1 person)  NA        1.235.000        1.895. 000  The Commission would fund the meetings of 
EURASIL. It would finance  the meetings of the 
Steering Group and of the Consultative Committee. In addition, it would organise events to promote peer learning, good practice and information exchanges, etc. and to 
convene specific working / expert groups. 
Finally, it could finance missions of experts or 
staff. 
Total            345.000        3.970.395        8.067.187    
 
- Merge of Support Asylum Structure into FRA 
Category Specification Estimated 
start-up costs Minimum 
ongoing costs Maximum 
ongoing costs Comments 
Title 1 - Staff 
costs           
Senior / 
technical staff Commission staff 
Estimated between 2 - 4 FTEs  NA            204.019                408.039  Staff comprises both human resources within 
the unit itself as well as financial staff, control and auditing staff, etc. 
Administrative and other support staff Commission staff 
Estimated between 3 - 6 FTEs  NA            186.743                373.486  Staff comprises both human resources within 
the unit itself as well as administrative and support staff from other units within the DG. 
Director    NA   NA   NA  Director of FRA already in place 
Coordination unit staff Senior / technical staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 2-4 FTEs  NA            204.019                408.039  Staff to reinforce the coordination unit 
Coordination 
unit staff Administrative staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 2 - 4 FTEs  NA            124.495                248.990  Staff to reinforce the coordination unit 
Senior / 
technical staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 20 - 30 FTEs  NA          2.040.194             3.060.292  Staff to man th e asylum department of FRA 
Administrative 
and other support staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 5 - 8 FTEs  NA            311.238                497.981  Staff to man the asylum department of FRA 
Staff benefits Es timated 15% of 
total staff costs  NA            352.715                533.741    
Staff training Estimated at 500 
per FTE  NA              14.500                  23.000    
            
Title 2 – 
Building, 
equipment and 
administrative 
expenditure           
 
EN 78   EN Information 
technologies / data-processing Database 
development and maintenance, computer software and related updates, etc. 
COI portal       500.000            500.000             1.000.000  This heading comprises all information 
technologies and data-processing activities of the agency. It also includes the development and maintenance of the COI portal. The exact costs of the COI portal cannot be estimated without additional research. Its 
development and maintenance could be 
(partly) outsourced. 
Infrastructure 
Costs for renting 
office space to host the agency.  NA            248.571                353.846  FRA is already settled in Vienna. Costs cover 
the rent of new office space to host the new staff. Note: the additional amount is spread over infrastructure and overheads. Note: 
amounts of EASO taken as basis for 
calculation 
Equipment Purchasing of 
equipment, furniture and 
specific computer 
hardware        50.000              10.357                  22.115  Costs relate to purchasing of hardware for the 
portals / databases, video-conferencing, etc. Ongoing costs relate to regular updating of this 
equipment and furniture, etc. Note: amounts of 
EASO taken as basis for calculation 
Overheads               187.596                295.071    
            
Title 3 – 
Operations           
Coordination unit Not applicable         
Risk / needs analysis Exchange best 
practicesSupport to monitoring and quality controlPool of asylum expertsIntra-EU relocationRegional 
Protection 
ProgrammesResettlement  NA            250.000                600.000  Identification of risks and needs under the 
different tasks, supported by analytical work. 
Direct support Pool of asylum 
experts 
Resettlement Intra-EU relocation  NA            150.000                600.000  Activation of experts (fees for secondment of 
experts for 20-30 missions of 10 working days) 
Inputs to intra-EU relocation and resettlement schemes. The latter i nputs are unlikely to 
happen in the short term. 
Capacity building / training Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring and quality control Joint production of COI 
Pool of asylum 
experts  Training and capacity building  NA            450.000             1.000.000  Organisation and facilitation of exchanges, 
peer learning and information sharing. Preparation of guidelines and needs assessments. Inputs to the experts pool 
database and management  of the pool. 
Delivery of training and capacity building exercises. 
Joint work on COI collection, production and 
assessment 
 
EN 79   EN Planning, 
research and development Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring and quality control Joint production of 
COI 
Joint assessment of COI Intra-EU relocation Training and capacity building 
Regional Protection 
Programmes  NA            450.000             1.000.000  Data collection, research, analysis to support 
the risk / needs analysis and capacity building elements of these tas ks. Development of 
training methods and courses (including e-learning). Part of these activities could initially be 
outsourced. 
External 
relations Liaison and 
cooperation with external actors  NA              50.000                100.000  Inputs to liaison and cooperation with third 
countries, IGOs, other cooperation structures and EU bodies (e.g. participation / organisation of meetings, preparation of briefing materials, etc). Under this Policy 
option the costs are lower as some existing 
cooperation structures would cease to exist and FRA would gradually become the single interlocutor on behalf of the EU. 
Information, communication and dissemination Development of 
information, communication and dissemination strategies, tools and products.        50.000            150.000                300.000  Development  of a strategy and methological 
tools, website, br ochures and other 
documents. Start-up costs relate to drafting of strategy and tools. It will be important for the agency to increase 
awareness and to promote its results. 
Events, 
meetings and missions (Meetings of the 
Management Board (8-12 for 30-
40 persons). 
Organisation of events, working and expert group meetings (15-25 for 50 persons) Missions (20-30 
missions of 1 
person)  NA            770.000             1.280.000  The meetings of the Management Board 
already take place: costs not included as a result of economy of scale. In addition, it would 
organise events to promote peer learning, 
good practice and informat ion exchanges, etc. 
and to convene specific working / expert groups. EURASIL would be one of the experts groups. Finally, it could finance missions of experts or staff. 
Total         600.000          6.654.449           12.104.600    
 
- Merge of Support Asylum Structure into FRONTEX 
Category Specification Estimated 
start-up costs Minimum 
ongoing costs Maximum 
ongoing costs Comments 
Title 1 - Staff 
costs           
Senior / technical staff Commission staff 
Estimated between 2 - 3 FTEs  NA         204.019         306.029  Staff comprises both human resources within 
the unit itself as well as financial staff, control and auditing staff, etc. 
Administrative and other support staff Commission staff 
Estimated between 3 - 5 FTEs  NA         186.743         311.238  Staff comprises both human resources within 
the unit itself as well as administrative and support staff from other units within the DG. 
Director    NA   NA   NA  Director of FRONTEX already in place 
Coordination 
unit staff 
Senior / technical staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 
2-4 FTEs  NA         204.019         408.039  Staff to reinforce the coordination unit 
Coordination 
unit staff 
Administrative 
staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 
2 - 4 FTEs  NA         124.495         248.990  Staff to reinforce the coordination unit 
 
EN 80   EN Senior / 
technical staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 20 - 30 FTEs  NA       2.040.194       3.060. 292  Staff to man the asylum department of 
FRONTEX 
Administrative and other support staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 5 - 8 FTEs  NA         311.238         497. 981  Staff to man the asylum department of the 
agency 
Staff benefits Estimated 15% of 
total staff costs  NA         352.715         533.741    
Staff training Estimated at 500 
per FTE  NA           14.500           23.000    
            
Title 2 – 
Building, 
equipment and 
administrative 
expenditure           
Information 
technologies / 
data-processing Database 
development and 
maintenance, 
computer software and related updates, etc. 
COI portal         500.000         500.000       1.000.000  This heading comprises all information 
technologies and data-proce ssing activities of 
the agency. It also includes the development 
and maintenance of the COI portal, as well as the broader information portal and experts pool database.  COI portal 
Infrastructure 
Costs for renting 
office space to host the agency.  NA         248.571         353.846  FRONTEX is already settled in Warsaw. Costs 
cover the rent of new office space to host the new staff. Note: amounts of EASO taken as basis for calculation 
Equipment 
Purchasing of 
equipment, 
furniture and specific computer hardware          50.000           10.357           22.115  Costs relate to purchasing of hardware for the 
portals / databases, video-conferencing, etc. 
Ongoing costs relate to regular updating of this equipment and furniture, etc. Note: amounts of 
EASO taken as basis for calculation 
Overheads            187.596         295.071    
            
Title 3 – 
Operations           
Coordination 
unit Not applicable         
Risk / needs analysis Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring, quality control and 
enforcement 
Pool of asylum experts Intra-EU relocation Regional Protection Programmes Resettlement  NA         250.000         600.000  Identification of risks and needs under the 
different tasks, supported by analytical work. 
Direct support Pool of asylum 
experts Resettlement Intra-EU relocation  NA         150.000         600.000  Activation of experts (fees for secondment of 
experts for 20-30 missions of 10 working days) Inputs to intra-EU relocation and resettlement schemes. The latter inputs are unlikely to 
happen in the short term. 
Capacity 
building / training Exchange best 
practices Support to 
monitoring, quality 
control and enforcement Joint production of COI Pool of asylum experts  
Training and 
capacity building  NA         450.000       1.000.000  Organisation and facilitation of exchanges, 
peer learning and information sharing. Preparation of guidelines and needs 
assessments. Inputs to the experts pool 
database and management  of the pool. 
Delivery of training and capacity building exercises. Joint 
 
EN 81   EN Planning, 
research and development Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring, quality control and enforcement 
Joint production of 
COI Joint assessment of COI Financial support (advisory role) 
Intra-EU relocation 
Training and capacity building Regional Protection Programmes  NA         450.000       1.000.000  Data collection, research, analysis to support 
the risk / needs analysis and capacity building elements of these tasks. Development of training methods and courses (including e-learning). Part of these ac tivities could initially 
be outsourced. 
External relations Liaison and 
cooperation with 
external actors  NA           50.000         100.000  Inputs to liaison and cooperation with third 
countries, IGOs, other cooperation structures 
and EU bodies (e.g. participation / 
organisation of meetings, preparation of briefing materials, etc). Under this Policy option the costs are lower as some existing cooperation structures would cease to exist and Frontex would gradually become the 
single interlocutor on behalf of the EU. 
Information, 
communication and dissemination Development of 
information, communication and dissemination strategies, tools 
and products.          50.000         150.000         300.000  Development of a strategy and methological 
tools, website, brochures and other documents. Start-up costs relate to drafting of strategy and tools. 
It will be important for the agency to increase 
awareness and to promote its results. 
Events, meetings and 
missions (Meetings of the 
Management 
Board (8-12 for 30-
40 persons). Organisation of events, working and expert group meetings (15-25 for 50 persons) 
Missions (20-30 
missions of 1 person)  NA         770.000       1.280 .000  The meetings of the Management Board 
already take place (costs removed from the 
calculation). In addition, it would organise 
events to promote peer learning, good practice and information exchanges, etc. and to convene specific working / expert groups.  
Total           600.000       6.654.449     11.940.342    
 
- Merge of Support Asylum Structure into the future IT-Agency 
Category Specification Estimated 
start-up costs Minimum 
ongoing costs Maximum 
ongoing costs Comments 
Title 1 - Staff 
costs           
Senior / 
technical staff Commission staff 
Estimated between 3 - 5 FTEs  NA       306.029        510.049  Staff comprises both human resources within 
the unit itself as well as financial staff, control and auditing staff, etc. 
Administrative and other 
support staff Commission staff 
Estimated between 
4 - 8 FTEs  NA       248.990        497.981  Staff comprises both human resources within 
the unit itself as well as administrative and 
support staff from other units within the DG. 
Director    NA   NA   NA  Director of IT AGENCY to be appointed 
Coordination 
unit staff Senior / technical staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 2-4 FTEs  NA       204.019        408.039  Staff to reinforce the coordination unit 
Coordination 
unit staff Administrative staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 2 - 4 FTEs  NA       124.495        248.990  Staff to reinforce the coordination unit 
Senior / 
technical staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 20 - 30 FTEs  NA     2.040.194     3.060.292  Staff to man the asylum department of the IT 
agency 
 
EN 82   EN Administrative 
and other support staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 5 - 8 FTEs  NA       311.238        497.981  Staff to man the asylum  department of the IT 
agency 
Staff benefits Estimated 15% of 
total staff costs  NA       352.715        533.741    
Staff training Estimated at 500 
per FTE  NA         14.500          23.000    
            
Title 2 – 
Building, 
equipment and 
administrative 
expenditure           
Information 
technologies / data-processing Database 
development and maintenance, computer software 
and related 
updates, etc. 
COI portal                 
500.000       500.000     1.000.000  This heading comprises all information 
technologies and data-proce ssing activities of 
the agency. It also includes the development and maintenance of the COI portal, as well as 
the broader information portal and experts 
pool database.  
Infrastructure Costs for renting 
office space to host 
the agency.  NA       248.571        353.846  Note: amounts of EASO taken as basis for 
calculation. 
Equipment 
Purchasing of 
equipment, furniture and specific computer hardware                
50.000         10.357          22.115  Costs relate to purchasing of hardware for the 
portals / databases, video-conferencing, etc. Ongoing costs relate to regular updating of this equipment and furniture, etc. Note: amounts of 
EASO taken as basis for calculation 
Overheads          187.596        295.071    
            
Title 3 – 
Operations           
Coordination 
unit Not applicable         
Risk / needs analysis Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring and 
quality control 
Pool of asylum experts Intra-EU relocation Regional Protection Programmes Resettlement  NA       250.000        600.000  Identification of risks and needs under the 
different tasks, supported by analytical work. 
Direct support Pool of asylum 
experts Resettlement Intra-EU relocation  NA       150.000        600.000  Activation of experts (fees for secondment of 
experts for 20-30 missions of 10 working days) Inputs to intra-EU relocation and resettlement schemes. The latter inputs are unlikely to 
happen in the short term. 
Capacity 
building / 
training Exchange best 
practices 
Support to 
monitoring and quality control Joint production of COI Pool of asylum 
experts  
Training and capacity building  NA       450.000     1.000.000  Organisation and facilitation of exchanges, 
peer learning and information sharing. 
Preparation of guidelines and needs 
assessments. Inputs to the experts pool 
database and management  of the pool. 
Delivery of training and capacity building exercises. Joint 
Planning, 
research and 
development Exchange best 
practices 
Support to monitoring and quality control Joint production of COI Joint assessment 
of COI 
Intra-EU relocation Training and capacity building Regional Protection  NA       450.000     1.000.000  Data  collection, research, analysis to support 
the risk / needs analysis and capacity building 
elements of these tasks. Development of training methods and courses (including e-learning). Part of these ac tivities could initially 
be outsourced. 
 
EN 83   EN Programmes 
External 
relations Liaison and 
cooperation with external actors  NA         50.000        100.000  Inputs to liaison and cooperation with third 
countries, IGOs, other cooperation structures and EU bodies (e.g. participation / 
organisation of meetings, preparation of 
briefing materials, etc). Under this Policy option the costs are lower as some existing cooperation structures would cease to exist and the IT Agency would gradually become the single interlocutor on behalf of the EU. 
Information, communication 
and 
dissemination Development of 
information, 
communication and 
dissemination strategies, tools and products.                
50.000       150.000        300.000  Development of a strategy and methodological 
tools, website, brochures and other 
documents. 
Start-up costs relate to drafting of strategy and tools. It will be important for the agency to increase awareness and to promote its results. 
Events, meetings and missions (Meetings of the 
Management Board (8-12 for 30-
40 persons). 
Organisation of events, working and expert group meetings (15-25 for 50 persons) 
Missions (20-30 
missions of 1 person)  NA       770.000     1.280.000  Meetings of management board: To be 
adapted in view of costs of IT-agency. Same calculation method as for Frontex and FRA 
(costs removed from the calculation) In 
addition, it would organise events to promote peer learning, good practice and information exchanges, etc. and to  convene specific 
working / expert groups.  
Total  
                
600.000     6.818.706    12.331.105    
 
- European Asylum Support Office (EASO) 
 Category Specification 
(2011 
onwards) Estimated 
start-up staff 
2010 Estimated 
start-up costs 
2010 Minimum 
ongoing costs 
(2011 
onwards) Maximum 
ongoing costs 
(2011 
onwards) Comments 
Title 1 - Staff 
costs             
Senior / 
technical staff Commission 
staff Estimated 
between 2 - 5 
FTEs See 
maximum on-going costs               
459.044           204.019          459.044  Staff comprises both human 
resources within the unit itself as well as financial staff, control and auditing 
staff, etc. 
Administrative 
and other 
support staff Commission 
staff 
Estimated 
between 3 - 5 FTEs See 
maximum on-
going costs               
217.867           186.743          217.867  Staff comprises both human 
resources within the unit itself as well 
as administrative and support staff 
from other units within the DG. 
Director Agency staff 
1 FTE Not 
applicable                       -            167.171          167.171    
Coordination unit staff Senior / technical staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 6 - 7 FTEs Agency staff 
Estimated 2 FTEs               
204.019           612.058          714.068  Staff to man the coordination unit of 
the Agency 
Coordination unit staff Administrative staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 6 - 7 FTEs Agency staff 
Estimated 2 FTEs               
124.495           373.486          435.733  Staff to man the coordination unit of 
the Agency 
 
EN 84   EN Senior / 
technical staff Agency staff 
Estimated between 30 - 50 FTEs Agency staff 
Estimated 15 FTEs            
1.530.146         3.060.292       5.100.486  Staff to man the various departments 
of the Agency 
Administrative and other 
support staff Agency staff 
Estimated 
between 17 - 
29 FTEs Agency staff 
Estimated 5 
FTEs               
311.238         1.058.209       1.805.180  Staff to man the various departments 
of the Agency 
Staff benefits Estimated 15% 
of total staff 
costs                 
276.208           617.775       1.035.850    
Staff training Estimated at 
500 per FTE                  
12.000             35.000            52.000    
              
Title 2 – 
Building, 
equipment and 
administrative 
expenditure             
Information 
technologies / data-processing Database 
development and maintenance, computer software and 
related 
updates, etc. 
COI portal                   
500.000           500.000       1.000.000  This heading comprises all 
information technologies and data-processing activities of the agency. It also includes the development and maintenance of the COI portal, as well as the broader information portal 
and experts pool database.  
COI portal  The exact costs of the portal cannot be estimated without additional research. Its development and maintenance could be (partly) outsourced. 
Infrastructure 
Costs for 
renting office space to host the agency.                  
50.000           600.000          800.000  The agency will establish its office in 
a Member State still to be defined. For this reason the costs may vary greatly. 
Start-up costs relate to renovation / 
preparation of the space. These costs are based on costs of existing agencies (FRA and FRONTEX) 
Equipment Purchasing of 
equipment, furniture and specific computer hardware                  
50.000             25.000            50.000  Start up costs relate to setting up the 
office and to purchasing of hardware for the portals / databases, video-conferencing, etc. Ongoing costs relate to regular updating of this equipment and furniture, etc. 
Overheads                368.985          575.585    
Title 3 – 
Operations             
Risk / needs 
analysis Exchange best 
practices 
Support to monitoring and quality control Pool of asylum experts Intra-EU 
relocation 
Regional Protection Programmes Resettlement See minimum 
on-going 
costs               
250.000           250.000          600.000  Identification of risks and needs 
under the different tasks, supported 
by analytical work. 
Direct support Pool of asylum 
experts Resettlement Intra-EU relocation See minimum 
on-going costs               
150.000           150.000          600.000  Activation of experts (fees for 
secondment of experts for 20-30 missions of 10 working days)  Inputs to intra-EU relocation and resettlement schemes. The latter inputs are unlikely to happen in the 
short term. 
 
EN 85   EN Capacity 
building / training Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring and quality control Joint 
production of 
COI Pool of asylum experts  Training and capacity 
building See minimum 
on-going costs               
450.000           450.000       1.000.000  Organisation and facilitation of 
exchanges, peer learning and information sharing. Preparation of guidelines and needs assessments. Inputs to the experts pool database and management of the pool. 
Delivery of training and capacity 
building exercises. Joint work on COI collection, production and assessment 
Planning, research and development Exchange best 
practices Support to monitoring and quality control Joint 
production of 
COI Joint assessment of COI Intra-EU 
relocation 
Training and capacity building Regional Protection Programmes See minimum 
on-going costs               
450.000           450.000       1.000.000  Data collection, research, analysis to 
support the risk / needs analysis and capacity building elements of these tasks. Development of training methods and courses (including e-learning). 
Part of these activities could initially 
be outsourced. 
External relations Liaison and 
cooperation with external actors See minimum 
on-going costs                
50.000             50.000          100.000  Inputs to liaison and cooperation with 
third countries, IGOs, other cooperation structures and EU bodies (e.g. participation / 
organisation of meetings, 
preparation of briefing materials, etc). Under this Policy option the costs are lower as some existing cooperation structures would cease to exist and the agency would 
gradually become the single 
interlocutor on behalf of the EU. 
Information, communication and 
dissemination Development of 
information, communication 
and 
dissemination strategies, tools and products.                  
50.000           150.000          300.000  Development of a strategy and 
methological tools, website, brochures and other documents. 
Start-up costs relate to drafting of 
strategy and tools. It will be important for the agency to increase awareness and to promote its results. 
Events, meetings and missions Meetings of the 
Management Board (8-12 for 30-40 persons). Organisation of 
events, working 
and expert group meetings (15-25 for 50 persons) Missions (20-30 missions of 
1 person) See minimum 
on-going costs            
1.010.000         1.010.000       1.600.000  The agency would finance all 
meetings of the Management Board. In addition, it would organise events to promote peer learning, good practice and information exchanges, 
etc. and to convene specific working 
/ expert groups. EURASIL would be one of the experts groups. Finally, it could finance missions of experts or staff. 
Total agency 
               
6.145.016       10.318.738      17.612.984    
 
 
EN 86   EN  
ANNEX 5: FINANCIAL ADDITIONAL DATA  
 
Table 5.1 – List of relevant 2002 ARGO and ERF projects 
Reference 
NumberApplicant organisation MS Title of the project Total forecast budget Amount requested
2002/ARGO/10 COA NLENARO Exchange programs 
and conferences345,301.00 207,184.00
JAI/2002/ERF/06 Municipality of Rome IT Europe, land of Asylum 342,634.00 274,107.00
JAI/2002/ERF/10 UNHCR EUProvision of country of origin 
and related information176,859.66 141,487.73
JAI/2002/ERF/26Save the Children 
SwedenSESeparated children in
Euro pe Pro gramme412,752.00 330,202.00
JAI/2002/ERF/37 Red Cross - EU Office EUConference "The new EU 
Directive on minimum 
reception standards for asylum 
seekers - from Policy to 
Action" 99,787.00 79,830.00
Total 1,377,333.66 1,032,810.73
 
Table 5.2 – List of relevant 2003 ARGO and ERF projects 
Reference Number Applicant organisation MS Title of the project Total forecast budget Amount requested
JAI/2003/ARGO/8 Ministry of Public Order ELAdministrative Cooperation among 
National Authorities on Asylum and 
Immigration Procedures around Europe141,243.45 77,371.61
JAI/2003/ARGO/9 FEDASIL BEEight European Conference on the 
Rece ption of As ylum Seekers44,853.79 25,024.29
JAI/2003/ARGO/13Ministero dell'Interno - 
Dipartimento per le Liberta e 
l'iimigrazioneITTowards more orderly and managed 
entry in the EU of persons in need of 
international protection - International137,159.54 85,759.54
JAI/2003/ARGO/2/1 8 CGRA BEDéveloppement d''un cadre de 
référence commun pour le traitement 
des demandes d''asile de République 
Démocratique du Congo – Elaboration 
d''une documentation pratique 
commune et de directives communes 
d''aide à la décision.549,253.10 170,408.51
JAI/2003/ERF/ 002 Rädda Barnen - Save the 
ChildrenSESeparated Children in Europe 
Programme418,420.71 331,066.53
JAI/2003/ERF/ 004 OXFAM UKProtection and Asylum : applying field 
based knowledge at the European level143,359.99 112,305.66
JAI/2003/ERF/ 005Churches' Commission for 
Migrants in Euro pe BE  Making resettlement work ! 62,950.00 49,120.00
JAI/2003/ERF/ 014Forum Förderverein Pro Asyl 
e.V. DE DE Info and Cooperation 211,244.50 168,995.50
JAI/2003/ERF/ 022 Österreichisches Rotes Kreuz  COI Network and Training 104,882.40 81,882.40
JAI/2003/ERF/ 037Työministeriö (Minsitry of 
Labour)FIMORE - Modelling of National 
Resettlement Process and 
Implementation of Emergency499,658.00 370,578.00
TOTAL 2,313,025.48 1,472,512.04
 
 
EN 87   EN Table 5.3 – List of relevant 2004 ARGO and ERF projects 
Reference Number Applicant organisation MS Title of the project Total forecast budge t Amount requeste d
JAI/2004/ARGO/023Ministero dell'Interno- 
Dipartimento per leLibertà Civili e 
l'Immi grazioneITStudio di fattibilità pe un programma di 
reinsediamento di refugiati112,301.32 67,380.79
JAI/2004/ARGO/08 ary - Office of Immigration and Nati oHUInformation exchange on Dublin 
Regulation among V4 countries32,282.00 19,122.00
JAI/2004/ARGO/018 Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst NLDublin Liaison Officer from the 
Netherlands to Slovakia and Austria, to 
optimise operational co-operation in 
Council Re gulation (EC) 343/2003 140,399.67 84,239.80
Second call
JLS/2004/ARGO/46Ministerie van Justitie, Immigratie 
en NaturalisatiedienstNLGeneral Directors Immigration Services 
Conference (GDISC).636,529.11 328,454.47
JLS/2004/ARGO/31 Ministry of Public Order ELARGONAUTE II – The strengthening of 
the asylum procedure at the Greek 
external borders.128,935.40 77,361.24
JLS/2004/ARGO/39Commissariat général aux 
Réfugiés et ApatridesBEEchange d'agents entre les 
administrations d'asile/immigration DE, 
BE FR LUX t NL443,292.58 143,497.97
JLS/2004/ARGO/42Ministry of Interior Department of 
Civil Liberties and ImmigrationITInformation exchange on Dublin 
Regulation among V4 countries.103,537.50 62,122.50
JLS/2004/ARGO/50 Fedasil BEThe role of reception organisations in a 
changing European context: exchange, 
networking, exploring operational co-
operation.264,575.99 108,345.59
JAI/2004/ERF/090 vivo e.V. DEMulti-Centre NETwork Capacity 
Buildin g122,400.00 97,900.00
JAI/2004/ERF/082 Magyar Helsinki Bizottsag HUOnline Curriculum Resources in 
International and European Asylum 
Law: Capacity Building for Refugee-
assisting NGOs and Refugee Law 
Clinics90,296.00 72,220.00
JAI/2004/ERF/060 Austrian Red Cross ATStenghtening the COI capacity of legal 
counsels of asylum-seekers through 
transfer of COI training skills and e-
learnin g217,904.27 167,297.07
JAI/2004/ERF/036Organizace pro pomoc 
uprchlikumCZFostering the best interests of the child 
in care institutions for unaccompanied 
minors79,526.68 63,404.85
JAI/2004/ERF/084RED CROSS/EUROPEAN 
UNION OFFICEBEEuropean Union Forum on Reception 
and Health Care of As ylum Seekers162,635.00 130,107.00
JAI/2004/ERF/027Commission des eglises aupres 
des migrants en EuropeBEUnderstsanding resettlement in 
practice: capacity building for action I 
(Makin g resettlement work II )143,398.00 114,678.00
JAI/2004/ERF/074 Jesuit Refugee Service BETraining for Persons Attending the 
Needs of Asylum Seekers and 
Refugees in Reception and Detention 
Centres67,330.00 53,860.00
JAI/2004/ERF/073Berliner Institut fur Vergleichende 
SoziolforschungDETraumatisierte Fluchtlinge in der EU: 
Institutionen, Schutzmechanismen und 
bewahrte Verfahren219,120.00 175,286.00
JAI/2004/ERF/039 Pro Asyl e.V. DECross-border Asylum Network 
Information and co-operation Forum II473,759.26 178,951.20
TOTAL 3,438,222.78 1,944,228.48
  
 
 
EN 88   EN Table 5.4 – List of relevant 2005 ARGO and ERF projects 
Reference Number Applicant organisation MS Title of the project Total forecast budget Amount requested
JLS/2005/ARGO/GC/01 Office français de protection des 
réfugiés et apatridesFRPoursuite du développement d'un 
cadre de référence commun pour 
le traitement de demandes 
d'asile de République 
démocratique du Congo. - 
Elaboration d'une documentation 
pratique commune.212,302.00 53,957.40
JLS/2005/ARGO/GC/02 Ministry of Interior ITStrengthening of reception 
capacity in respect of migration 
flows reaching the island of 
Lampedusa540,149.12 311,129.47
2005/ARGO/GC/03 Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst NLCommon EU guidelines for the 
use and validation of factual COI157,169.76 61,739.86
2005/ARGO/GC/04 Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst NLGeneral Directors' Immigration 
Services Conference 1,052,167.09 575,320.25
2005/ARGO/GC/12 Bundesamt fuer Migration und 
FluechtlingeDEEU-wide conference "Exchange 
on the implementation of Council 
Directive 2001/55/EC on 
minimum standards for giving 
temporary protection in the event 
of a mass influx of displaced 
persons" and on measures 
promoting a balance of efforts 
between member states in 
receiving such persons and 
bearing the consequences 
thereof.166,589.83 90,902.57
2005/ARGO/GC/17 Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs MTIntra-European burden-sharing in 
the field of as ylum 322,625.00 119,700.00
2005/ARGO/GC/20 Commissariat general aux réfugiés 
et aux apatridesBEPooling of asylum liaison offices 
in a country of origin: Great 
Lakes Re gion259,170.50 114,002.80
JLS/2005/ERF/016 ICMC EUROPE BEPractical Cooperation for an 
European Resettlement Network126,007.00 100,805.00
JLS/2005/ERF/020 Ministry of Labour FIMOST - Modelling of Orientation, 
Services and Training related to 
the Resettlement and Reception 
of Refugees577,913.00 399,233.00
JLS/2005/ERF/024 Austrian Red Cross ATCOI Network III - Training, 
Master Class, Good Practice239,306.18 191,206.18
JLS/2005/ERF/001 Hungarian Helsinki Committee HUMonitoring access of asylum 
seekers to territory and 
procedure at European airports - 
exchange of experience and best 
practices80,464.00 64,371.20
JLS/2005/ERF/007Churches Commission for Migrants 
in EuropeBEResettlement - Broadening the 
basis in Europe Providing 
continued and targeted 
information and discussion on 199,465.00 159,535.00
JLS/2005/ERF/018 Greek Council for Refugees GRIdentifying and promoting good 
practices for unaccompanied 
minors in the EU asylum 
legislation97,539.06 78,031.25
TOTAL 4,030,867.54 2,319,933.98
 
 
 
EN 89   EN Table 5.5 – List of relevant 2006 ARGO and ERF projects 
Reference 
NumberApplicant 
organisation MS Title of the project Total forecast budgetAmoun t 
requested
2006/ARGO/GC/04 IOM BEExchange of information and best 
practices on first reception, protection and treatment of 
unaccom
panied minors180,111.73 144,111.73
2006/ARGO/GC/14 Immigration and 
naturalization serviceNLGeneral Directors' immigration 
services conference 2007 (GDISC 
2007 )1,202,727.23 625,440.38
2006/ARGO/GC/21COA (central agency 
for reception of 
asylum seekers )NL Durable solutions in practice 333,970.00 184,830.00
2006/ARGO/GC/09 Ministry of Interior, 
Department for civil 
liberties and 
immigrationITConsolidating reception capacities 
in respect of migration flows 
reaching the island of Lampedusa 
and other strategic border points of 
the Sicilian costs (Praesidium II)619,712.67 371,827.60
2006/ARGO/GC/16 COA (central agency 
for reception of 
asylum seekers )NLEuropean asylum reception 
organisations' knowledge transfer 
hub (The Hub )538,608.00 258,008.00
JLS/2006/ERF/001Hungarian Helsinki 
CommitteeHUEnhancing the proper 
implementation of Community law in 
Member States through Online 
Teaching Resources and 
Information Exchan ge199,762.58 139,833.81
JLS/2006/ERF/004Immigration and 
naturalization serviceNLGeneral Directors' Immigration 
Services Conference Asylum 
Conference 200783,402.00 58,381.40
JLS/2006/ERF/010International 
Organization for 
MigrationBENot just numbers. Teaching Toolkit 
on Migration and Asylum in the 
Euro pean Union 478,401.28 334,880.90
JLS/2006/ERF/018Medical Rehabilitation 
Center for Torture 
VictimsGRDevelopment of Training Material for 
Professionals Working with Asylum 
Seekers and Refugees Survivors of 
Torture and Ill Treatment71,545.00 50,081.00
JLS/2006/ERF/005Dutch Council for 
RefugeesNLNetworking on the Transposition of 
the Qualification Directive: Sharing 
Information and Facilitating 
Dialogue between NGOs and other 
stakeholders252,094.00 176,465.00
JLS/2006/ERF/016Italian Council for 
Refu geesITServices at Borders: a practical 
cooperation163,197.94 114,238.56
JLS/2006/ERF/006Ministry of Interior, 
Department for civil 
liberties and 
immi grationITResettlement: Building up the basis. 
Promoting programmes for the 
resettlement refugees through 
information and awareness raisin g89,667.62 62,767.33
JLS/2006/ERF/008Immigration and 
naturalization serviceNLEuropean Asylum Curriculum, 
Phase II655,737.70 400,000.00
JLS/2006/ERF/014 University of Konstanz DEMulti-Centre NETwork 
Strenghtening202,702.92 141,800.00
TOTAL 5,071,640.67 3,062,665.71
  
 
EN 90   EN Table 5.6: Estimated FTE's dedicated to transnational practical cooperation 
Source: feasibility study . During the case studies and intervie ws with key stakeholders from 
public and civil society sectors, interviewees were asked to estimate the total time allocated to practical cooperation on a yearly basis. Not all stakeholders we re able to provide such an 
estimate. Table 5.6 below shows the estimated human resources in FTE by country or by relevant organisation, as well as the esti mated total costs. For some countries, estimates were given by 
both public authorities and NGOs. 
 
Name of organisation FTE involved in practical 
cooperation 
Asylum and Refugee Office (ES) 3 
Forum Refugie (FR) 2 
Terre d'asile (FR) 10 
Ministry of immigration (FR) 4 
OFPRA (FR) 6 
Ministry of Justice (NL) 4 
Vluchtelingenwerk (NL) 4 
Office for Foreigners, Department for Refugee Procedures (PL) 1 
Department of international cooperat ion/ Office for Foreigners (PL) 2 
Asylum section, Migration Policy de partment, Administrative and Internal 
Affairs, Ministry of Interior (SL) 4 
Asylum and Migration section (CZ) 2 
Red Cross (AT) 12 
Total (7 Member States) 54 FTE 
Average per Member States 7.7 FTE 
Assumed total EU27 208 FTE 
Assumed total cost55 6,015,500 euro 
 
                                                 
55 Based on annual gross salary in Services sector, Structure of Earnings Survey 2002 (Eurostat) 
 
EN 91   EN                                                                                                                                                               
i This table concerns States that have an annual refugee rese ttlement programme target or quota in 2008.  The figures are based on information 
reported by States according to allocations  provided for in 2008.  Owing to different fiscal / programme years among States and  complexities 
associated with calculating yearly allocations , which in some cases are flexible, the figures in this table should be read as a pproximate.  
ii This includes resettlement processing for individual s who are in their country of origin (non-refugee).  
iii The majority of resettlement countries do not include family  reunification within their quota allocation for UNHCR submissions .  Individuals 
accepted under family reunion programmes include i ndividuals in their country of origin.   
iv Australia’s refugee resettlement intake for 2008/2009 has been increased by 500 places.  
v Citizens and/or permanent residents of Australia can propose / sponsor individuals under this category.  Community organisatio ns can also 
propose under this category.  
vi Immediate family reunification is given priority under the Humanitarian Program  (figures shown under “private sponsorship” col umn).  
vii 7,300 – 7,500 places comprise the total Government  assisted target, including in-country processing.  
viii Government assisted resettlement.  
ix Denmark is operating a flexible quota of 1500 places over 3 years. Within the 3-year period, more or fewer places can be used depending on 
actual needs.  
x This figure is based on the rationale that each case comprises approximately 4 persons.  The agreement signed between France a nd UNHCR 
refers to “une centaine de cas”.  
xi This figure refers to an ad-hoc submission made by UNHCR and NGO / church groups for Iraqi refugees.  
xii 300 places of the 750 allocation could be used for non-UNHCR submitted cases.  
xiii Up to 300 places could be used for individuals in their home c ountry who are family members of refugees resettled in New Zeala nd.  These 
places, if used, would be taken from the 750 places available for UNHCR submissions.   
xiv Close family members of resettled refugees are reunited and se ttled as refugees in Norway over and above the resettlement quot a.   
xv This figure refers to the Mandate Programme which has no set limit but the figure is based on the average number resettled eac h year.  
xvi Where States provided a target range (e.g. Iceland 25-30), the higher figure has been used in calculating the total. 
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