The EU’s maritime operations and the future of European Security: learning from operations Atalanta and Sophia (original) (raw)
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Maritime engagement in the Gulf of Aden is a puzzling case for anyone interested in the political and institutional problems underlying European Union–North Atlantic Treaty Organization (EU–NATO) cooperation. Although the EU’s operation NAVFOR ‘Atalanta’ and NATO’s ‘Ocean Shield’ operate in the same theatre and with similar mandates, there is no formal link between them. No joint planning has been envisaged, and no official task-sharing takes place. As this article aims to show, cooperation and coordination between EU and NATO forces at the operational and tactical levels have nevertheless worked surprisingly well. Two faces of EU–NATO cooperation become apparent: the political level is dominated by a permanent deadlock, while on the ground and at sea staff have developed a modus operandi that allows them to deliver fairly successfully in complementing yet detached operations. Based on 60 interviews with EU and NATO officials (2010–2013), this article illustrates how the operational...
Conclusion. EU Maritime Foreign and Security Policies: Aims, Actors, and Mechanisms of Integration
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This book set out to provide a comprehensive understanding of EU maritime foreign and security policies, asking to what extent, how, and why the EU is a maritime power in the making. The studies confirm that the EU indeed is becoming maritime global power. The EU now has its own Maritime Security Strategy with a functioning and comprehensive action plan, two major ongoing military naval operations, to a large degree acts with one voice at the international scene, and it has taken important steps in the development of an Arctic policy. In the maritime domain, the EU is no longer only a soft power but increasingly uses military means to respond to new security threats and challenges, also known as 'soft threats' such as piracy and migration. The high number of planned actions agreed in the EUMSS and action plan as well as the maritime focus in the EU's new Global Strategy suggests that we can expect maritime integration and cooperation, including in the military domain, to continue to grow in the years to come. The UK's withdrawal from the EU and the US' more reluctant tone towards guaranteeing Europe's defence will only serve to push this development further. After all, EU leaders have already agreed to deepen cooperation on security and defence in the face of these events (European Council 2017). The findings in this book are thus important also for our understanding of the EU as such. Being the only remaining intergovernmental policy area in the EU and the one most strongly linked to member states' sovereignty, EU foreign and security policies have been referred as a sine qua non in order to achieve full European integration. And EU maritime foreign and security policy indeed takes collective
The European Union’s Quest to Become a Global Maritime-Security Provider
Naval War College Review, 2023
The European Union (EU) seeks to become a global maritime-security actor, yet strategic challenges influence its maritime-security strategy process. Is there a distinctive and coherent EU approach to global maritime security, and how should the EU address the growing range of maritime challenges, including the intensification of militarized competition in the Indo-Pacific?
Pedagogika-Pedagogy, 2021
The specific regional dynamics of maritime security environment in EU raise the question whether and to what extent the processes of “regionalization of security” need to be implemented within the principles of current CSDP (Common Security and Defense Policy) and European maritime security strategy. Joint civil-military concept of operations on regionalization of CSDP action in different regions like Saher Mali or Sahel Nigeria are good examples of tackling specific regional threats with individual regional approach based on the main strategic interests of the EU. The unification of policies based on international regulations in the maritime domain are examined in the context of the very specific regional aspects of the European national maritime spaces. Some examples of Black Sea maritime security issues are analyzed with the question to which extent basic assumptions of the current CSDP and European maritime security strategy are applicable to the challenges of the current securi...
International Relations and Diplomacy
The global challenges to maritime security have long outnumbered the classic interstate war. Increasingly, the new threats have assumed the most real risks, whether human, weapons or drugs traffic, piracy, illegal fishing among others. Some of these challenges, even if they are not in the European Union's primary strategic maritime area, they have relevant impacts on this. The unstable region of the Gulf of Guinea, for example, with its cases of armed robbery, piracy, or even trafficking (mainly human and drug trafficking) has attracted attention to the several EU Member States, with individual policies that are often poorly articulated. This paper is the result of field research with stakeholders from 17 South Atlantic countries (the research delimitation occurred in South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone [ZOPACAS] members) and concludes that the exogenous (European) point of view of the major challenges that encourage the collaborative participation of the South Atlantic are, necessarily, the ones that have most demanded attention and engagement from the EU Members States. For example, the highest local priority in allocating resources available in the African coast Navies has been to face and control smuggling acts. The African States are seeing it as the biggest threat to its maritime security. The widespread problem of piracy appears only as of the third priority of the regional countries. Besides, the perception of the reputation of control centers coordinated by exogenous members (States and individuals) to the region does not result in joint information sharing engagement or even in maritime domain awareness. Thus, this paper that starts from the maritime security's typological conceptual presentation-as a complex, divergent, and convergent concept-presents empirical research and identified actions with potential for greater engagement in the South Atlantic region. It seeks to demonstrate the need for EU analysis of exogenous problems should increase the local point of view problem. It therefore serves both the reflection on many of the action points of the Action Plan of European Union Maritime Security Strategy (EUMSS) and on the competences involved by the EU, in particular, as regards the actual role of the EU and its Member States in relation to the maritime security aspects of EU internal policies and EU external relations, EU in negotiating, concluding and implementing international agreements in this area. On the other hand, it also relates to the accountability of EU Member States with other involved actors (the South Atlantic States, regional organizations, and/or local/multinational private actors).
A EU Naval Mission Without a Navy: The Paradox of Operation Sophia
Rome, IAI, May 2019, 4 p. (IAI Commentaries ; 19|33), 2019
Renewing the operation while depriving it of the naval assets needed to patrol the Mediterranean demonstrates the extents the Italian government is willing to go in order to ensure that its interests are met at the EU level. Yet, the decision also demonstrates the depths of intra-EU disagreements on migration and the lack of courage and solidarity among EU member states when it comes to taking decisive action on this issue.
Focusing on the EU’s responses to managing global security at sea this paper illustrates the distinctions and possible connections between piracy, terrorism and other crimes at sea. Further, it examines international rules (customary and conventional) aimed at preventing and counteracting acts of maritime violence. Finally, the article explores traditional repressive measures and new precautionary mechanisms (the universal jurisdiction principle, the aut dedere aut judicare rule and control of cargo operations) underlining the need for international cooperation in order to guarantee global security at sea.
EU MARITIME SECURITY What is it? Why does it matter?
European Union has lately launched an effort to consolidate its position as a global security actor. In this sense the 2003 European Security Strategy was the first substantial step to this direction. Presently EU is close to editing a very important security strategy document, that of Maritime Security Strategy. This paper outlines the added value of this effort in light of the new emerging threats and challenges included in the document. Initially a comprehensive reference is made to the recent steps and efforts that paved the way and the opportunity for us to today to actually discuss the launch of an EU Maritime Security. Further on, an essential analysis of the new security threats as included in the strategy document follows, along with the expansion of the issues under consideration. Our central viewpoint is that "strategy through synergies" or else "cooperative strategy" at the global level and essentially in line with the European acquis and international law, is the axis -path that EU should follow. In conclusion, we believe that the global aspect of maritime security should not outweigh its regional and national elements respectively.
Europe’s Fight Against Piracy: From the Barbary Coast to Operation Atalanta
Papiers d'actualité/ Current Affairs in Perspective, Fondation Pierre du Bois No 4, mai 2013, 2013
The paper examines the performance of the operation EU NAVFOR Atalanta, putting it the wider historical context of the European integration process as well as Europe’s role in contemporary international relations. To this end, the paper first introduces the operation, delves into how it was conceived and assesses its performance to date. Subsequently, it argues that Operation Atalanta represents an important benchmark for the credibility of the European Union as a global actor and thus constitutes a logical continuation of the European integration process. It shows that Europe and its nations have come a long way since the fight against the Barbary pirates of the past.