With an average annual budget of EUR 40,000,000 in Frontex' overall operational budget, a rough 25%, appears to have been set aside for the implementation of Greece's 2008-2013 Poseidon Program.46 The most important, however, operation was the launch of Operation RABIT, an emergency operation under the auspices of FRONTEX, aiming at halting the influx of irregular migrants through the Greek-Turkish land border. The significance of the project lies, among others, in its symbolic value; it was the first time that an EU Member State invoked a situation of emergency and asked for assistance to guard its borders. It also meant that Greece acknowledged its limited ability to guard its external land borders from incoming flows. the RABIT operation lasted between 2 November 2010 and 2 March 2011 and cost EUR 4,4 million. In total 576 officers working around 19,000 man-days and specialized in different areas of border management (e.g. false-document detection, detection, dog handling, stolen vehicle checks, de-briefing) were deployed. By the end of February 2011, the average number of migrants apprehended in the region, had dropped from 250 per day to 58. In terms of size and speed, it was considered the fastest and most successful response to an emergency call by an EU Member State.47 The overall financial support, thus, provided by Frontex, between 2008-2013 was EUR 26,5 million, if we calculate it on the basis of grants awarded to Greece, and minimum of EUR 87 million, if we calculate it on the basis of the overall budget aside in the context of operational assistance and capacity building. Table 5. Frontex Financial Contribution to Greece between 2008-2013 Financial Contribution Indicative Indirect Financial Contribution 20082013 Grants awarded 26 million to Greece Poseidon Program 83 million RABIT Operation 4.4 million TOTAL 26 million >87.4 million EEA Grants A third major source of financial support has been the EEA Grants. Established in 1994, it is an inter-governmental funding scheme that aims at alleviating social and economic disparities among Member States. The funding does not solely focus on migration and asylum but covers a wider spectrum of socio-economic issues. Since 1998, the donor States of the EEA Grants 46 Based on our own calculations from Frontex' annual work programs, available at http://frontex.europa.eu/about-frontex/governance-documents/ 47 For more on Operation Rabit see Frontex, “RABIT Operation 2010 Evaluation Report”, August 2011, Warsaw, available at http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Attachments_News/fer_rabit_2010_screen_v6.pdf Page 23