European Maritime Days: A review of more than ten years of maritime cooperation

Published on 24/05/2023

International security, stability and peace

GLOBAL THREATS AND ORGANISED CRIME

Sub-Saharan Africa

From 24 to 25 May, Expertise France was at the European Maritime Days organised in Brest. It was an opportunity to showcase European maritime security and safety projects implemented by the agency, and especially their activities and the results they have achieved in this field for a number of years now. The experts mobilised for these projects took part in a workshop on “The EU as a Maritime Security Actor in the Gulf of Guinea and in the Indo-Pacific”.

Maritime security and safety: an issue addressed by Expertise France since 2009

Maritime areas are the main source of livelihood for many people around the world. Their security is becoming an increasingly important global geopolitical issue given the role that oceans play in world trade, the economic weight of sectors linked to the sea, its resources, and the current environmental challenges. The maritimisation of the world also results in the spread of transnational threats and illegal activities (illegal fishing, pollution, trafficking, piracy…). In this context, Expertise France has been addressing the issues of maritime security and safety since 2009 through the implementation of projects financed by the European Union, in particular under the Critical Maritime Routes Programme. The agency is currently implementing eight projects around the world for a total amount of more than €43 million.

Multi-country projects to address global threats

Atlantic coast and Caribbean region

GoGin, SEACOP V and EnMar are projects implemented in this area at various levels and on a variety of themes.

With €5 million of financing from the EU, SEACOP V aims to contribute to the fight against illicit maritime trade and the associated criminal networks in Latin America, the Caribbean and West Africa. To this end, it is implementing activities to strengthen the capacity of the maritime intelligence and maritime/riverine control network, increase partners’ knowledge about maritime threats, and improve cooperation and information sharing at the national, regional and trans-regional levels. For example, there have been more than 80 seizures of different drugs and firearms through the work of the teams trained under this project in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Guinea and on the coasts of South America.

In the Gulf of Guinea, the GoGin project aims to promote the Blue Economy by improving maritime security and safety. This project especially contributes to supporting countries cooperating within the Yaoundé Architecture, through the deployment, training and promotion of the YARIS platform. This platform, which was created in 2020 during the first phase of the project, aims to promote international and inter-administration cooperation among all the stakeholders in the maritime domain to improve the security and safety of all sea users in the Gulf of Guinea. The project has been ongoing since 2016 and has just entered a new phase which started on 1 May 2023.

Finally, in a complementary manner and in the same geographical area, the EnMar project, which started in October 2022, aims to strengthen the cohesion of the EU’s efforts in the region. More specifically, it will contribute to promoting a political dialogue between Gulf of Guinea countries and the EU, increasing synergies and cohesion between the European Union’s activities to support maritime security, providing technical assistance, strengthening the capacity of priority countries, and raising awareness of the EU’s maritime strategy in the area.

Indo-Pacific

The CRIMARIO and ESIWA projects cover Africa, the Indian Ocean and, more generally, the Indo-Pacific region. They mainly focus on maritime domain awareness and information sharing. They were initially considered from the perspective of the fight against maritime piracy, but the scope has developed to cover other threats requiring the same collaborative approach.

CRIMARIO, which started in 2015, aims to improve maritime domain awareness through information sharing, capacity building and training. This objective has been achieved, including through the implementation of the “IORIS” platform, an information sharing and incident management tool and a comprehensive training programme on maritime data processing (data analysis and visualisation). The project entered a second phase in 2020 which extends its geographical scope towards South and Southeast Asia. It is also continuing to improve the exchange and analysis of information, strengthen inter-administration cooperation on maritime surveillance, policing, investigation and justice, and facilitate the implementation of international legal instruments and regional agreements.

The ESIWA project aims to deepen the dialogues on security with partner countries. It facilitates exchanges of expertise and promotes convergence between the security policies and practices of the EU and partner countries. It also contributes to raising the profile of the EU as a security provider in the Indo-Pacific region. This project covers various themes, including maritime cooperation. In this context, the project has recently organised a seminar on “The challenges of securing maritime areas for the European Union: a focus on the Indo-Pacific Region”, in partnership with the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) and Romanian National College of Home Affairs. This event gathered 80 participants from 11 partner countries in the region, as well as European colleagues, to discuss emerging threats, the concept of coordinated maritime presence, the EU’s action in the region (EU NAVFOR ATALANTA, CRIMARIO, ESIWA…), as well as the protection of critical maritime infrastructure and the EU’s strategy for the Blue Economy. During a call by the French frigate “Prairial” at Incheon (Republic of Korea), ESIWA also facilitated a panel discussion on board the ship, gathering European and Korean officials to discuss the convergences of views on maritime security.

In Kenya, the Go Blue project aims to promote an enabling environment for the development of the Blue Economy by strengthening the governance and operational capacity of Kenyan stakeholders responsible for maritime security. In 2022, 19 training sessions were organised in various fishing villages along the coast, as well as 2 training sessions in cooperation with Kenyan coast guards. The project also formalised the development of the Coastal Light App (in partnership with CRIMARIO).

ESIWA, CRIMARIO and GO BLUE are all implemented by Expertise France and, building on their respective expertise, they are working closely together to provide partner countries with the widest possible cooperation services.

Mediterranean

Finally, in 2020, Expertise France started working on the specific issue of the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing with a project in Algeria. The objective is to strengthen the Blue Economy which is essential for the development of the fishing industry. More specifically, the project aims to strengthen the capacity of Algerian partners to monitor, control and manage fishing, and raise awareness among fishermen in the area on these issues.

In the future, Expertise France aims to strengthen its portfolio on the current thematic areas. It also intends to build its expertise on the issue of port security, in terms of human threats and the adaptation and resilience of critical port infrastructure to climate change.