On the 24th of April 2018 the Administration of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine hosted the sixth Steering Committee Meeting of the Twinning Project.

Apart from the State Border Guard Service’s officers the meeting was attended by European experts from Germany, Poland and Lithuania, officials of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, representatives of the European Advisory Mission to Ukraine (EUAM) and the National Agency of Ukraine on Civil Service.

At the beginning of the meeting the Head of the International and Eurointegration Department Oleksandr Panchenko expressed his gratitude to the audience for the possibilities of this project realisation and briefly informed on the reporting period’s achievements of the Border Agency of Ukraine.

The EU Twinning Project Leader Thomas Osterroth drew a comparison between a Half-marathon (long distance run) and our project. The main thing is to keep the pace over the whole distance: “Never to give up, to find motivation, as the main important fact is to get to the finish line. Three quarters of the two year project have been conducted by us and not too much time is left. We are surely on the home straight towards the main goals of the project – the improvement of the Border Guard Service´s capabilities, which at the end will serve to increase the national and international security level”.

Inna Belobratova, the Sector project manager of the Center for the adaptation of the Civil Service to European standards, added in her speech: “All the activities within the framework of this Twinning Project were held timely and in good manner. The majority of Ukrainian agencies are aware of the results being provided by your project. Amongst all the Twinning-projects, currently implemented in Ukraine, yours – is one of the most effective and successful.”  

In the course of the meeting, the Project and Component Leaders of the Twinning project presented the audience with the results of the reporting period and discussed the activities carried out. These included trainings, workshops and study visits in the sphere of travel document verification and stolen motor vehicles detection. The main achievement of the working quarter is considered to be the completion of the generic mid-term report on the realisation of the Action Plan 2016-2017, supplementing the Integrated Border Management Concept. It’s also worth mentioning the qualitatively organised and well-conducted evaluation of the border control systems’ vulnerability being held as per Schengen methodology standards. At this moment we already have the real and detailed evaluation results. The priorities for further work have been identified. Most important is to follow up on the creation of the high level Inter Agency Working Group (IAWG). In this context, the State Border Guard Service turned to its European partners with the kind request to support the matter of identifying a suitable IAWG chairperson, by the Ukrainian government.

Martin Klaucke, the Head of the Operational Department of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, highlighted: “Much time and many efforts have been put into and a lot of work has been performed in the project, however, the main fact is the long-lasting effect of it on the service activity after project completion. We are ready to support further, and open for other projects and involvement of European experts to assist not only in training performance and evaluation activities, but also in strategic issues as well, meaning here also the support at the time of development of the new IBM Strategy for the period of 2020-2025”.

At the end of the meeting, the Sector Manager of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine summarised that this project is very good, sufficient and taken seriously by both sides: “Much more is elaborated than it was initially planned. The project consisting of several elements turned into a massive Integrated Border Management project. This is not an ordinary Twinning project, but a project which exceeded its limits. These are substantial arguments for receiving support from the European Union in the future.  

The next Steering Committee Meeting is planned to be conducted at the beginning of July, and in September the last activities of Component 1 will already be held, in the framework of which the representatives of the State Border Guard Service would inform on the status and how the project recommendations will be implemented. Either by itself or with the support of European experts.