Internal Security Fund - Borders and Visa

The Internal Security Fund (ISF) was set up for the period 2014-20, with a total of EUR 3.8 billion for the seven years. The Fund will promote the implementation of the Internal Security Strategy, law enforcement cooperation and the management of the Union's external borders. The ISF is composed of two instruments, ISF Borders and Visa and ISF Police.

Achieving the key objectives

The ISF Borders and Visa instrument's main objective is to contribute to ensuring a high level of security in the Union while facilitating legitimate travel. This goal will be achieved through the Fund's support to actions which will aim to reach the following specific objectives:

• Visa:the effective processing of Schengen visas by supporting a common visa policy which aims at facilitating legitimate travel to the EU, providing a high quality of service to visa applicants, ensuring equal treatment of non-EU nationals and tackling irregular migration;
• Borders: achieving a uniform and high level of control of the external borders by supporting integrated borders management, harmonising border management measures within the Union and sharing information among EU States, and between EU States and Frontex, in order to halt irregular migration and ensure the smooth crossing of the external borders.

For the 2014-20 period, EUR 2.76 billion is available for funding actions under the ISF Borders and Visa instrument, of which EUR 1.55 billion will be channeled through shared management and EUR 1.06 through direct management. EUR 154 million is reserved for the Special Transit Scheme (Lithuania).

Concrete actions to be funded through this instrument can include a wide range of initiatives, such as setting up and running IT systems, acquisition of operational equipment, promoting and developing training schemes and ensuring administrative and operational coordination and cooperation.

The Fund's beneficiaries

All EU States except Ireland and the United Kingdom participate in the implementation of the ISF-Borders instrument. The four Schengen Associated Countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) also participate in the ISF Borders and Visa instrument. Examples of beneficiaries of the programmes implemented under this Fund can be state and federal authorities, local public bodies, non-governmental organisations, humanitarian organisations, private and public law companies and education and research organisations.