The EU Maritime Security Strategy

Background

The European Commission published on 10 March 2023 the Joint communication on the update of the EU Maritime Security Strategy and its Action Plan: An enhanced EU Maritime Security Strategy for evolving maritime threats. The EESC in its opinion analyses the Commission's plan from the perspective of the European civil society, reaffirming certain principles but also signalling some weak points in the proposal.

In a nutshell, the EESC supports and calls for more joint actions: pooling and sharing resources, joint procurement, better coordination and integration of the exiting information-sharing platforms, etc.

One of the shortcomings of the Joint Communication, in the view of the EESC, is a weak executive dimension, since it does not cover the means or a governance framework that could establish a coordinating role for the different maritime security and safety initiatives. Moreover, the proposal does not mention the role of the organized civil society.

The opinion points to the priority issues, which, according to the EESC, should be taken in account while enhancing the EU Maritime Security Strategy along all its axes, including stepping up activities at sea, cooperation with partners, leadership in maritime domain awareness, risks and threats managements, capabilities enhancement, education and training. The document gathers insights into the current challenges for maritime security agenda and discusses how civil society can best contribute to the implementation of the proposed Action Plan.

Anastasis Yiapanis, EESC member and rapporteur of the opinion said: "Maritime Security Strategy is in line with the EU Strategic Compass. In our view, the maritime domain should be prioritized and understood broadly, especially in the context of the increasing hybrid threats."

Mateusz Szymański, EESC member and co-rapporteur of the opinion said: "Our goal is to include the aspect of maritime safety and security. The security of the crews should be a priority for the EU and that is why we insisted on flagging this point in our opinion".

Key points

The EESC:

• Affirms that, in terms of funding, EU maritime security needs entail increased investment by the EU Member States (MS). Therefore, to ensure synergies between fragmented EU military capabilities, the MS need to pool and share more extensively, and should identify priority areas for operational and joint procurement endeavours;
• Considers EU-NATO cooperation as essential and stresses the need to enhance it through better sharing of maritime situational awareness and more effective coordination in different areas of common interest, including protection of critical infrastructure;
• Calls on the EU to intensify engagement with international partners to collectively tackle shared concerns, including people smuggling and human trafficking, and the use of hybrid strategies, which are currently a substantial threat to international maritime security; maritime security cooperation should be included in future EU trade agreements;

The full text of the opinion can be found here

Additional information

EESC section: External Relations Section (REX)

Opinion type: Optional

Rapporteur: Anastasis Yiapanis

Co-rapporteur: Mateusz Szymański

Referrence: REX/576-EESC-2023

Referral: JOIN(2023) 8 final JOIN(2023) 8 final

Date of adoption by section: 18 July 2023

Date of adoption in plenary: 21 September 2023

Result of the vote: 153 in favour/ 1 against/3 abstentions

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