Final Report Summary - GLOBE (European Global Border Environment)
A strategy to set up European-wide integrated border management should be based on targeted results; it should be capable of evolving over the years and make the required adjustments to adapt to new framework conditions and to the emerging of new needs, threats and priorities.
The GLOBE long term vision of integrated border management promotes the gradual convergence of the currently isolated main activities related to border management (i.e. checks on people, checks on goods, surveillance and police investigation). The convergence principle would apply to all areas where closer relations between Member States could be developed: border forces, institutions, practices, equipment and legal frameworks.
The main output of GLOBE is a roadmap intended to provide the best route to achieve a global border environment. The document reflects throughout its pages the result of an extensive overview on current initiatives inside and partially outside the European Union intended to tackle the various problems faced by national, regional and also European level authorities in the common mission of maintaining the security of the European borders while ensuring the licit transit of travellers and goods, together with the recommendations that arise after comparing the situation nowadays with a desirable one in which a common framework is conceived and operational collaboration is achieved.
GLOBE final roadmap delivers, in a unique document, the main guidelines of work and a comprehensive and functional approach to its consequent implementation in phase 2 of the demonstration programme on integrated border management. The document includes a priority list of issues to take into account in the right order to avoid entering into a problematic implementation as well as procedural, technical and integration recommendations deriving from the elements identified and described in the GLOBE project on specific areas of border management; technology maturity, use and deployments characteristics for each proposed technology, critical factors and unaddressed areas, complementary aids and economic restrictions. Additional information on questions that cut across technology uses such as political and economic issues or affecting international treaties and conventions are underlined and put into consideration.
The results of this work can be used in further development of policy within the Framework Programme for Research and Technology to increase efforts in border control, identifying possible topics to be open in future calls in order to cover the arising needs and difficulties. An important aspect of the roadmap consists in establishing the current state-of-the-art to help stakeholders determine the approach of their participation in the demonstration programmes. The roadmap provides an objective and systematic method and the analysis tool required to evaluate emerging technologies for the industry, universities and interested institutions while identifying technologies missed out by experts at the initial stage, completed years ago.