The EU-millions that no one wants

the DN has revealed that the EUROPEAN commission is threatening to withdraw up to a billion crowns in EU subsidies. The reason is that Sweden has not used a large part of the money should go to projects to strengthen asylum and migrationsarbetet. Up to 800 million may be lost according to the Migration board estimates.

the Background is, among other things, that the whole work with the EU contribution was delayed two years, and that the government, in 2018, did not give the migration board the right to distribute the contributions.

Read more: Hotbrevet to the government – the EU can withdraw hundreds of millions in refugee aid

But there is another explanation – many of those who would be able to apply for grants, do not want to do it.

AMIF described by several people within the government and civil society that DN talked to who difficult. They come with high demands on administration and accounting.

Hultsfred municipality is one of the those who received the highest number of refugees seen to its size. Despite this, the municipality never applied for grants from the AMIF.

”the application process is very lengthy, slow, tedious and complicated,” writes the municipality's section leader Robert Andersson to DN.

”Delrapportering, financial accounting, etc requires, in principle, heltidsanställer an administrator just to manage the bit. So, so far we have made the assessment that it costs more than it tastes to apply from the AMIF. There are places it is easier to get money from.”

It is the migration board that doles out money from the EU. The responsible officials of the authority, parts of the image that the EU grants have a reputation of being cumbersome to search and take part of. It also says that it had been difficult to reach out with information about the fund that is less than the other EU funds that have more money to offer.

of the approximately 40 projects that applied for and received a grant from the AMIF – sek 4.4 million to promote a legally certain återvändandeprocess. The organization describes the EU contribution as very important to be able to help people in the vulnerability and says that it worked well. But in spite of it, the picture is two-fold, even at the Red cross.

– There are parts of our organization who think that it is too complicated to apply for EU-money, and therefore it is time to be. Then, we are still a very large organization with a lot of capacity if you compare with many others, " says Mikaela Hagan, who is project manager at the Red cross.

She lifts up that they also require a co-financing is generally 25 per cent, which often involves a cost for the operator of the project.

– You must also follow a lot of rules, procedures and guidelines in order to get the money back from the EU. It is a risk, you risk to get money withdrawn or not receive compensation for their costs if you commit something wrong.

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