In February of this year, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior announced that it would no longer cover the costs of integration courses for migrants without a secure right of residence. These cuts left approximately 130,000 people with rejected payment applications. After months of public outcry and an eventual compromise by the German government, coverage of costs remains limited and available only to certain groups.

This is just one example of the current trend of migration policies and rising anti-immigrant sentiment across Europe. Just a few days ago, the European Parliament approved a much stricter migration law that includes the building of so-called return hubs outside the European Union. While politicians debate stricter border policies and deportations rise, we want to consider the impact of integration measures on those who are going to stay.

The European answer to migration and integration

The European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) is distributed to finance migration measures across the EU during seven-year periods. Today we find ourselves drawing towards the end of the 2021-2027 period, one that according to the European Commission, has enabled €10.94 billion to be spent on efforts “to enhance solidarity and responsibility sharing between Member States”. The main goals of the fund include strengthening the common European asylum system, supporting legal migration and integration, as well as combatting irregular migration.

AMIF funding aims to support EU member states in accommodating migrants across the bloc’s national borders. This image shows refugees travelling towards Hungary’s border with Austria back in 2015. Photo: Flickr I Joachim Seidler I CC BY 2.0

According to Technopolis Group’s mid-term evaluation, AMIF programmes have been successful so far. Up until mid-2024, 46% of planned projects have been put into practice and 11% of the funding has actually been paid out. This is the best performance of any of the EU funds under the Common Provisions Regulation. Nevertheless, it also notes that Member States advance “with notable variation in speed and achievement levels”.

With just one year left before the programme’s next renewal, we examine AMIF spending in three countries with very different migration and integration profiles: Germany, the EU’s largest recipient of the fund, Ireland, which only joined AMIF in 2022 and relies heavily on local structures, and Cyprus, a smaller frontline state far more dependent on EU funding than its larger neighbours.

Proportionality of Integration Funding

The AMIF is distributed to countries based on population and migration data. The largest sum within the bloc goes to Germany, at €1.6 billion. Ireland and Cyprus are significantly lower with €63.52 million and €59.1 million. However, it’s the proportionality of integration funding within these totals that raises questions around the priority of integration.

It is noteworthy that AMIF funding makes up only a small amount of overall migration budgets across most of the EU. Germany’s migration budget, as a country of immigration facing shortages of skilled workers, far exceeds the one provided by the AMIF. Take for example the estimated €24.2 billion spent on refugee and asylum related expenditures in 2025 alone. Nonetheless, the EU fund is an important source for civil society organisations that would otherwise not receive financial support from the state.

Similarly, Ireland’s total migration spending amounts to well over €1.2 billion before adding on the €63.52 million from the EU fund. Integration-specific funding, however, makes up only €3.5 million of this total.

Cyprus is an outlier in terms of migration management dependence. The Auditor General of the Republic of Cyprus estimated that the government spent approximately €500 million on irregular migration management during the period 2021–2024, excluding indirect costs such as policing. Although Cyprus received a relatively high AMIF allocation of €59.1 million for the 2021–2027 programming period, this amount remains modest when compared with the country’s actual migration management expenditure.

Structures of Integration Policy

Ireland and Cyprus opt largely for an outsourcing approach. With no centralised integration policy nationwide, integration-dedicated funds are instead distributed by the government to non-governmental organisations working in communities across the country to provide integration services.

The dependency on these kinds of non-governmental structures is less pronounced in Germany, where certain integration programmes are financed and arranged by the central government. Ireland, while lacking central measures, does operate Local Authority Integration Teams (LAITs) in each county, which see NGOs supported on a finer scale. Meanwhile, Germany’s situation is complicated by its federal system and a lack of clear responsibility between government, states and local authorities. Amid national budget cuts in social benefits and also integration, it is often the municipalities that need to carry the extra burden with less spending power.

Another major issue with creating common integration measures is the lack of publicly available evaluation of policies, making it difficult to assess their overall effectiveness. In Cyprus, evaluation may occur only within EU-funded projects that follow strict quality assurance rules. Ireland proves more problematic again given a larger absence of accountability for projects across the board, so much so that the European Migration Network (EMN) criticised that Ireland and Estonia are the only subscribing nations to rely on household surveys to compile integration data. It’s a significant finding from the organisation responsible for providing “knowledge on emerging issues relating to asylum and migration in Europe”.

Language and Cultural Education

Language acquisition and cultural identification are among the most important indicators of quality integration, and integration courses have long been a core part of integration policy across all three countries.

Since 2007, various Cypriot initiatives have provided Greek language classes and civic education for both young and adult third-country nationals, sometimes free of charge, as well as integration awareness training for employers, teachers, journalists, and public officials. These initiatives are largely implemented through EU-funded, project-based mechanisms, particularly under AMIF. One notable example is the project „Offering Greek Lessons to Minor Nationals of Third Countries“, in collaboration with CARDET, a non-governmental organisation. Although Greek language courses are available, they are mostly temporary and often aimed at specific groups, such as minors and reaching only relatively small numbers of participants.

In Germany, integration courses have existed since 2005 and are funded by the central government. In 2026, a budget of originally €1 billion has been allocated for these courses, compared to €1.2 billion the previous year. In Ireland, most immigrant groups, including asylum seekers, can access this education for free, however here the supply issue becomes prevalent instead. Research from the country’s Economic, Social and Research Institute identified a lack of places for the growing numbers of immigrants seeking them year on year. So while Germany shrinks its criteria for eligibility to help curtail supply issues, Ireland has yet to act on this problem.

So has the AMIF produced cohesive European integration?

As we’ve seen, the goal of a common integration approach remains quite far from reality. The problem is not that Germany, Ireland and Cyprus handle integration policy differently. It is that these differences are barely comparable, unevenly monitored and only loosely connected to a shared European idea of responsibility. In this sense, AMIF still falls short of turning EU solidarity into measurable integration policy.

Ireland’s proportion of integration funding in 2025 was remarkably less than 1% of its annual budget in light of the €3.5 million distributed to its cross-country projects, while Cyprus dedicates over 20%. Then again, Cyprus has very little organised structure for supporting integration, while Ireland’s LAITs provide a strong localised example of integration support. Though unfortunately, it’s a small win within a widely unmonitored situation. The scale of Germany’s migration makes a singular process across the whole country impossible, which further complicates its comparison with other nations. Its budget cuts to integration courses don’t spell good news for its migration policy either and fit into a trend of categorising migrants into groups and actively integrating only the ones that are most useful for the labour market.

A myriad of different issues appear state by state. What is clear therefore is, that if Europe wants “shared responsibility and solidarity”, it may be time to enact shared processes and monitoring, so that countries delivering positively on migration aren’t let down by their neighbours failing to pull their weight. How this responsibility becomes policy rests on the prospects of the forthcoming renewal of the AMIF in less than a year’s time.

This article was written as part of the “Newsroom Europe” project. The project brings together young Europeans from Germany, Cyprus, and Ireland, who report in international editorial teams on European issues. Its aim is to strengthen journalistic skills and to foster European exchange. The project is organized by the European Academy Berlin. Treffpunkteuropa.de is the project’s media partner.