Editor's note

Hardest hit EU member states are countries, which are getting the most: Italy for example, will pick up €557 million, while Greece will receive €473 million (e.g. Alexis Tsipras said that more immigrants arrived in Greece in August than in all of 2014).

Out of the 3 Baltic States, so far, Estonia is planned to get €35,2 mln  and Lithuania – almost € 196 mln; these amounts are released, generally, from Internal Security Fund (ISF), which consists of the borders & visa and the police cooperation & crisis, management instrument. Financial support for Lithuania includes as well the so-called Special Transit Scheme of €154 mln. (LT government announced that 325 migrants are regarded “optimal”).

General immigration funding: quite small…

The asylum, migration & integration fund (AMIF) contributes to the efficient management of migration flows and the development of a common approach to asylum and migration. There are so far 7 AMIF programs (Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden) and 16 ISF programs (Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain).

Thus, some states are having from both funds. The remaining 13 national programs will be approved later in 2015.

Looking at the immigration funding by the numbers, it seems that those €2.4 billion “working euros” divided by so far 3,8 mln migrant makes about €90 per new migrant in the EU, based on the Eurostat’s account for 2013.

There would be around 27 million immigrants across the seven funded years. Obviously many migrants, e.g. highly-skilled short-term migrants aren't touched by this cash. But including the costs of dealing with failed asylum applicants, etc. the present “investment” seems quite small.

Some say that the failure or lack of political will to fully embrace solutions to the migration crisis has its roots in the fact that Europe is still an agglomeration of “selfish-nations” acting very much as individuals facing unexpected danger…  

Estonian approach

In Estonia, e.g. the EU’s financial support will be used to improve work of the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) and to procure facilities and materials for work.

Estonian minister of Internal Affairs Hanno Pevkur stated that the funding from the IFS will be used first and foremost for enhancing border guarding infrastructure. “A new vessel, drones, night vision observation equipment and other such items are what we will purchase to increase the efficiency of border guarding,” he said.

H. Pevkur added that Estonia will also complete the development of the national part of the Visa Information System and to enhance the capability to fight against terrorism, drug trade, cyber-crime, human trafficking and threats regarding explosives.