Effective border management will enable people from the Western Balkans to live in a space of security and freedom where their businesses can trade more easily across borders and where they can travel more easily throughout the region, key prerequisites for economic growth and poverty reduction as well as for the development of multicultural societies that tolerate their neighbours and appreciate cultural, religious and linguistic differences €117 million have been allocated for this programe for the period 2002 - 2004.
Border management issues are addressed with comprehensive supplies, investment and institution building programmes, based on a clear national strategy. Specifically, support will be used to:

1. Facilitate the flow of trade and people across borders by improving border crossings' infrastructure facilities, strengthening national institutions and procedures (e.g. customs, veterinary agencies) and improving related infrastructure elsewhere within the country (e.g. multi-agency information systems).
2. Enhance the control at the border by strengthening the infrastructure and institutional capacities of border guard agencies, supporting border demarcation and promoting co-operation with national police.
3. Develop border regions, where required, both through regional development programmes and through programmes for cross border co-operation. These regions may border the EU (e.g. Greece or Italy), candidate countries (e.g. Slovenia Romania) or be between the countries of the SAp region itself (e.g. Presovo Serbia and Montenegro/the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia).
4. Actively promote co-operation between the involved agencies. It will be critical for countries to ensure coherence of their border management activities with those of their neighbours.

The scale of the democratic stabilisation needs in the SAp region is large. For this reason, all possible support from the European Community shall be brought to bear on helping the countries resolve this problem.

Alongside the continued activities of the CARDS national programmes and the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), additional funds will be provided from the CARDS Regional Programme to support work of existing foundations and international organisations on programmes involving more than one country.

Of particular priority will be good governance and the rule of law, the promotion of a free and independent media and of freedom of opinion, the protection of minorities, respect of cultural, linguistic and religious diversity, the fight against racism and xenophobia, and conflict prevention and resolution. In addition, non-governmental activity in the area of sustainable development will be promoted.

The scale of needs in this area are also very substantial. National and regional CARDS support is focused primarily on overall civil service reform and on strengthening public administration capacities in fiscal and financial management, procurement, Justice and Home Affairs, trade agreements and related trade facilitation activities, and familiarisation with the acquis communautaire.

CARDS regional programmes includes an Institution Building Facility for the SAp - for small technical assistance assignments and for networking and meetings – focused on the above priority areas. In addition, specific programmes have been developed in the areas of Justice and Home Affairs, government statistics and environment, responding to the unique characteristics and needs in these areas.

In the area of infrastructure, the regional programme will support the development of coherent strategies for infrastructure (transport, energy and environment) with an international dimension. One of the main activities is the development of studies to extend the Pan European Network System in the Western Balkans. A second main area of intervention is the strengthening of the capacity in institutions involved in air traffic safety and control.

The first phase of the Tempus programme was established in 1990 to respond to the needs for Higher Education reform in Central and Eastern European countries, following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ('Tempus I', 1990-1993).
Since then, the programme has been renewed three times (Tempus II, Tempus IIbis and Tempus III - 2000-2006).

The Tempus programme encourages institutions in the EU Member States and the partner countries to engage in structured cooperation through the establishment of "consortia". The "consortia" implement Joint European Projects (JEPs) with a clear set of objectives. Such projects may receive financial aid for two or three years.

Tempus also provides Individual Mobility Grants (IMGs) to individuals working in Higher Education institutions to help them work on certain specified activities in other countries. The Tempus Programme may also provide help for certain sorts of complementary actions.

Institutions and organisations which may participate in Tempus range from Higher Education institutions through to non-academic institutions such as non-governmental organisations, business companies, industries and public authorities.

At present, all the five Western Balkans countries are eligible for funding through cooperation via consortia with the EU Member States.

The Tempus programme is managed by the European Commission, Directorate General Education and Culture, Unit 'Tempus Programme - USA/Canada agreements'. Technical assistance is provided by the European Training Foundation.

Additional information on the Tempus Programme may be found in the website from the European Training Foundation and the Directorate General for Education and Culture.

SIGMA (Support for Improvement in Governance and Management) is a joint initiative of the European Commission and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), principally financed by the European Commission and carried out by the OECD. It was created in 1992 to provide support for administrative reform in transition countries, specifically the ten candidate countries plus Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Sigma manages a Candidates Programme (Phare financed) and a Balkans Programme (CARDS financed) using, where possible, common management systems and technical resources.

Extensive CARDS national programme support provided to institution building is critical in ensuring that SIGMA projects complement and deliver value to national programme support to the institutional strengthening of public administrations. SIGMA has consistently worked with EC implementing bodies on EC public administration reform project to provide expertise for terms or reference, steering groups, etc. and has also provided preparatory and bridging activities for public administration reform programmes in the partner countries.

Working with a team of OECD experts, the programme assists partner countries to establish effective legal and institutional frameworks for efficient, reliable and accountable public institutions under effective control of the democratically elected public authorities operating under the rule of law and appropriate to a market economy.

SIGMA priority areas are:

• Civil service and administrative reform

• Policy capacities

• Public expenditure management

• External audit

• Financial control

• Public procurement

SIGMA support is chiefly provided in three ways:

• General assessments of public administration reform in the region
• Organisation of pan regional training events on SIGMA priority areas
• Targeted assistance to partner country administrations to realise reform.

For more information please refer to the SIGMA web site.

Through the Stabilisation and Association Process, the European Union has given the countries of the Western Balkans the long-term perspective of becoming candidate countries. This has been recently reconfirmed at the European Council Meeting in Thessaloniki in June 2003.

In line with these developments, instruments developed in the Enlargement context are increasingly being made available to CARDS countries. One such instrument is the Twinning programme which has been exported to the CARDS programme, albeit in an adapted form to reflect the SAp countries’ different levels of association with the Union.

CARDS Twinning supports and finances the secondment of civil servants from EU Member States to work as advisers to beneficiary institutions for a period of at least twelve months to realise institution building programmes. Typically a Twinning project involves a set of activities such as seminars, training, transfer of expertise, legal drafting advice that revolves around the seconded Member State civil servant

Following the completion of a Twinning project, Partner Countries are expected to have achieved significant progress in the identified area of the project. In some cases, one Twinning project may not be sufficient to achieve this goal, and a series of projects may be required to achieve full compliance with the objectives.

Both the sending Member State and the receiving Partner country administration must be deeply involved in all stages of the Twinning project. As Twinning is a results orientated programme, both partners commit themselves to achieving well defined results in the course of the project. As such Twinning is not a one way delivery of expert advice but a joint effort that creates results and lasting partnerships.

The Twinning instrument will be expanded to all countries of the Western Balkans over the course of 2004. The programme is not a regional programme, per se, but rather an instrument that is being offered to all countries of the region to be financed via the national CARDS allocations.

Currently more than a dozen Twinning projects are running or are in the preparation in Albania and Croatia. The areas covered are among others: prisons, statistics, internal audit, asylum, customs, border police, criminal intelligence system, border sanitary inspection.