The European Commission has awarded a further 6.1 million euro in emergency funding to support migration management in Bulgaria, the Commission said on February 6.
A sum of 3.6 million euro will be provided to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) from the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) to enhance the protection of unaccompanied children, carry out voluntary returns and provide reintegration support as well as assistance, information and counselling to migrants, the EC said.
An additional 2.5 million euro will be provided to IOM to complement the actions already implemented by the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior in order to improve migration management and the Bulgarian asylum system.
The award decisions complement the EU funding granted to Bulgaria since October 2016, which amounted to a total of 149 million euro under AMIF and the Internal Security Fund (ISF).
The emergency funding comes on top of the 91 million euro already allocated to Bulgaria under the national programmes for 2014-2020.
In a separate statement on February 6, the EC said that it had awarded an additional 3.9 million euro in emergency funding to Greece under the ISF to help improve reception conditions for migrants on the Greek islands.
This is to further support EU financed actions carried out by the Greek Ministry of Defence to provide catering, accommodation and transportation to the migrants on the islands, also in support of emergency accommodation solutions, such as temporary accommodation in ships, the EC said.
With this award, the overall amount of emergency assistance from the Home Affairs Funds made available for Greece since 2015 amounts to 356.8 million euro.
This emergency funding comes on top of the 509 million euro allocated to Greece under the national programmes for 2014-2020.
In total, the Commission has made available more than a billion euro in support for Greece since 2015 to support the country with migration and border management, the EC said.
SOURCE: Sofia Globe
