On 11th of July 2017 the Administration of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine hosted the regular Steering Committee Meeting of the Twinning Project “Support to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine in further development of IBM approaches for t

On 11^th of July 2017 the Administration of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine hosted the regular Steering Committee Meeting of the Twinning Project “Support to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine in further development of IBM approaches for travel document verification and stolen motor vehicles detection” for the purpose of the debriefing for the 3rd Quarter of the ongoing Project.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the Twinning Projects of the State Border Guards Service of Ukraine and of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, officials of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, the Border Agencies of Germany, Poland and Lithuania, and a representative of the National Agency of Ukraine on Civil Service.

During the 3rd Quarter of the Project, within the first component (“Assistance in monitoring and evaluation of the new IBM Strategy and Action Plan (2016-2020)”) and the second component (“Improvement of the border checks system (countering irregular migration and detection of forged documents), including IT solution in line with the EU models and best practices”) several activities were conducted: six working weeks with EU experts at the Administration of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, two working field visits to the Border Crossing Point for Air Traffic “Boryspil” and a Study Visit of Ukrainian Border Guards to Lithuania.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Head of the Border Security, Anatoliy Makhniuk mentioned that: “… the project has passed into the practical phase of its realization and today, due to the expert’s assistance, the draft of the “Instruction on evaluation and monitoring of the SBGSU’s operative service activity in accordance with the Schengen evaluation mechanism” has been elaborated and along with that clear and comprehensive recommendations have been provided…”.

Further, the representatives of the respective Components presented the recommendations concerning the improvement of the Border Guard Agency’s activities and the Integrated Border Management (IBM) in general to the audience. In particular, the main attention was drawn to:

the establishment of a consultative working group (decision-making coordinative body) at strategic level on matters of IBM;

optimisation of Ukrainian legislation in the field of State Border Security, drawing on the example of the Schengen Border Code;

implementation of control measures in countries of origin and transit countries of illegal migrants (creation of liaison officers’ positions and/or experts for documents’ expertise)  in accordance with the European “four-tier-access model”;

alignment of informational sources as per EU standards by developing of a central database which will serve for automated interagency data exchange while ensuring personal data protection;

introduction of the “Advanced Passenger Information System” in line with the  standards which are applicable in EU Member States;

It is worth mentioning that the Project Leader Mr. Thomas Osterroth expressed his satisfaction with the level of cooperation of the border guards. The transparency of the Border Guard Administration, the professional level of the officers and the readiness to implement EU standards, taking into account the national peculiarities of Ukraine, left a great impression on the project’s experts.

Summarizing the Steering Committee Meeting, both sides have commonly agreed on the creation of a “road map” for the realisation of the recommendations and for the start of their implementation at the nearest possible time.

So far several activities have been organized and conducted: 14 working weeks with the involvement of Twinning experts in the departments of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, two Study Visits to EU Member States (Germany and Lithuania) and three Steering Committee Meetings. Representatives of the Border Agencies of Germany (13 activities), Poland (8 activities), and Lithuania (8 activities) were involved.