Enlargement of the EUROSUR border-control project

GMV has won the contract for two-phase enlargement of the EUROSUR project, within the framework of the European Commission’s European Border Surveillance System, under the responsibility of the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union (FRONTEX, shortened from the French Frontières extérieures).

EUROSUR establishes a mechanism for cooperation and swapping information, allowing member-state border-control authorities and Frontex to collaborate in all the following:

• Reduce the number of undetected illegal immigrants in the Schengen area
• Reduce sea deaths among illegal immigrants
• Increase the EU’s internal security by preventing cross-border crime

The main aim of this Project is to provide the necessary capacity for creating a permanent connection between the whole set of National Coordination Centers (NCCs) and FRONTEX itself, using an extensible system that gives member-state border-control authorities access to a shared, secure and decentralized information network. This will give a fuller picture of EU cross-border incidents and their trend.

Program enlargement is being organized in two new phases during which twelve new member states with their corresponding nodes (six per phase) are being brought into the EUROSUR information network. As from 2013 EUROSUR will provide EU’s border member states with an operational and technological working framework that improves their situational awareness at external borders and hones their reaction capacity.

These nodes are now to be grafted onto those already deployed in earlier phases of the contract, which began at the end of 2010. In these phases GMV designed and implemented the network and its systems, equipping six member states and Frontex with network capacities and services. By the end of 2012, therefore, the EUROSUR network will comprise 18 EU member countries and Frontex, all totally operative.

Information is exchanged under bilateral agreements between the member states and under the constraints defined by them, although the overall aim and guiding spirit is the setting up of large communities all sharing the same information among Union countries.