On April 5th 2017 the Administration of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine hosted the 2nd Steering Committee Meeting of the Twinning Project.

On April 5th 2017 the Administration of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine hosted the 2nd Steering Committee Meeting of the Twinning Project.

The meeting was attended by the representatives of the Twinning Project, officials of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, representatives of EUAM and EUBAM, the Border Agencies of Germany, Poland and Lithuania. On behalf of the Ukrainian side, apart from the Border Guards, the representatives of the State Fiscal Service and National Agency of Ukraine on Civil Service took part in the event.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Deputy Head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Vasyl Servatiuk notified that for the State Border Guard Service it stayed to be a priority – to implement the EU best practices in terms of the border security, and underlined that together with the European colleagues the Service had similar views and common approaches to its securement.

He highly appreciated the results of the conducted work by the EU experts.

“I would like to emphasize on the high level of the experts being involved in the Project activities. Owing to this we already today can speak about the concrete results” – was highlighted by Vasyl Servatiuk.

Further the Twinning Experts presented the main activities’ results conducted in the second quarter of the project realization, in particular, the legal workshop with presentation of findings of the legal analysis and presentation of the EU and EU MS national legislation including field visits to Border Crossing Points. Besides, the research and analysis of the achievements in the framework of the Integrated Border Management, the legal base and the legislative framework, as well as, the study visit to the Federal Police of Germany to familiarize with the main principles of IBM components were mentioned during the meeting.

It’s worth pointing out that the Twinning-project team is fully contented with the level of cooperation with Border Guards. The transparency of the Border Agency, the professional level of the officers and the readiness towards EU standards’ implementation, taking into account the national particularities of Ukraine, left great impression on the team.

In addition, the Project Leader of the Twinning Project Thomas Osterroth notified: “I am fully convinced, that we will successfully move on in this way and will step forward to achieve the overall objective of the project „the enhancement of the SBGSU' s capacity in the prevention of illegal migration and combating crime“.

All the participants of the project indicated the effectiveness of the conducted activities during the reporting period. The Chief of the Risk Analysis Department of the State Border Guard Service Andriy Vikhtiuk pointed out that in general the Twinning Project, especially the Component 1 (note: “Assistance in monitoring and evaluation of the new IBM Strategy and Action Plan (2016-2020) implementation”), is considered by the Border Agency to be a platform for the enhancement of the State Border Guard Service’s activity in the common system of IBM, the expansion of bilateral and multilateral cooperation not only on the national but also on the international levels.

Summarizing the Steering Committee Meeting, the Deputy Head of the State Border Guard Service Vasyl Servatiuk underlined that the Border Agency is looking forward to the start of the active phase of the 2nd and 3rd Components to observe the practical implementation of the Project realization.

It bears reminding that the 1st Steering Committee Meeting took place at the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine on 17th of January this year.