A partnership to support Ukraine in aligning its border management and asylum systems with European Union and Schengen standards was launched today at a conference near the Polish-Ukrainian border, with €7.5 million in EU funding.
The money comes from the Ukraine Facility, which supports Ukraine’s recovery, reconstruction, and reform efforts as well as its progress towards EU accession. The EU4IBM and Asylum Partnership is led by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, together with the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Working closely with the relevant Ukrainian authorities, in particular the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and the State Migration Service of Ukraine, the partnership will support Ukraine’s efforts to strengthen its border management and asylum systems as part of its path towards EU membership. The partnership will run for 36 months.
The project will help Ukrainian border and asylum authorities work more closely with their EU counterparts and prepare for the border and asylum standards that apply in the EU.
Frontex will help Ukrainian authorities improve how border guards, customs, police, and other services plan and work together. This includes support for Ukraine’s integrated border management strategy and for the border management aspects of its preparations for Schengen, as well as work on risk analysis and plans for sudden changes at the border.
The project will also help Ukraine build a clearer picture of what is happening at its borders. Its national border coordination centre, set up in 2024 to bring information from different authorities into one place, will be developed further so that it can gradually begin exchanging information through EUROSUR, the system EU countries use to share information about events at the EU’s external borders.
Ukrainian and EU analysts will also work more closely together on cross-border crime, and a joint exercise will test Ukraine’s contingency plans in practice.
Training is another part of the project. Ukrainian border guard training will be brought closer to the common standard used across the EU. One hundred officers will take an operational English course, and Ukrainian document experts will gain access to EU tools used to detect forged travel documents.
EUAA will work with Ukraine’s State Migration Service on asylum law, procedures, and the conditions in which asylum seekers are housed. The aim is to bring them closer to the EU’s common asylum rules, including through training for asylum caseworkers and the courts that hear asylum appeals.
IOM, which is present across Ukraine, will support the delivery of the project’s activities in the country alongside Frontex.
On 7 October, Frontex Executive Director Hans Leijtens crossed into Ukraine to visit the State Border Guard Service in the Lviv region, where Major General Vadym Chenchyk, Acting Head of the Service, and his officers showed him their work at the border and the capabilities developed with a Frontex grant since the invasion.
Frontex and the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine have worked together since 2007 under a formal working arrangement, which is now being renewed. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Frontex officers worked as observers at Ukrainian border crossing points.
Since February 2022, Frontex has sent more officers to the EU’s eastern land border and launched a joint operation in Moldova. Its Management Board also approved a €12 million grant to the State Border Guard Service for generators, winter uniforms, vehicles, and surveillance equipment.
The opening conference in Arłamów, Poland, brought together Ukrainian authorities, the European Commission, the EU Delegation to Ukraine, EU agencies, border and asylum authorities from neighbouring countries, and international organisations. Participants discussed priorities for the project’s first annual work plan.
The EUAA’s support to this project builds on earlier engagement with Ukraine, including the Agency’s participation in the TAIEX workshop in December 2021, and the delivery of four training modules through collaboration with the Prague Process. In the framework of the Ukraine Facility, complemented by EUAA core resources, the EUAA and Ukrainian authorities have jointly developed an EUAA-Ukraine Roadmap for Cooperation 2026–2029, which is expected to be endorsed shortly, with implementation to begin before the end of this year.
IOM has been working in Ukraine for 30 years and has maintained an operational presence across the country throughout the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion, working alongside national and local authorities even under the most challenging conditions. This sustained engagement has fostered trusted partnerships and enables IOM to respond rapidly to emerging needs, ensuring donor support is translated into tangible results. In border and migration governance, IOM leverages its nationwide presence, technical expertise, and long-standing institutional partnerships to support reforms and help authorities translate policy priorities into effective operational outcomes.
Frontex Press Team: press@frontex.europa.eu