CRITICAL MARITIME ROUTES and CSDP, relating to out of area EU strategic options, namely as concerns the gulf of guinea

Nota: Para além de reflecting and reinforcing o determinado na Resolução 2039 of the UN Security Council, o projeto pretendo contribuir, no longo prazo, para a melhoria da gestão dos ass

CRITICAL MARITIME ROUTES – GULF OF GUINEA (CRIMGO)

As in other EU member-States, in Portugal we have a Directorate General for Maritime Policies É competência da DGPM portuguesa promover acções de cooperação bilateral e multilateral relacionadas com o mar, de acordo com as atribuições cometidas pelo artigo 2º, nº 2, alínea q), do Decreto Regulamentar

nº 17/2012, de 31 de Janeiro

Nesse contexto, a DGPM, like our sister entities in some of the other

regionally-concerned member-States, respondeu à Call for Tender

“Critical Maritime Routes - Gulf of Guinea (CRIMGO) correspondendo à Fase III deste programa financiado através do Instrument of Stability.

O objectivo principal deste projecto da DGPM portuguesa and of our lateral equivalents within the Community, in support of the EU Commission, é:

• Apoiar os países da região do Golfo da Guiné na implementação de medidas visando a melhoria da segurança marítima na região, principalmente nos aspectos relacionados com o Combate à Pirataria Marítima e o Roubo Armado no Mar, or, say, ilegal fishing (as has been the case, namely in Nigeria along the coast, or Benin, for example)

(Nota: Para além de reflecting and reinforcing o determinado na Resolução 2039 of the UN Security Council, o projeto pretendo contribuir, no longo prazo, para a melhoria da gestão dos assuntos do mar e das respectivas políticas públicas)

Outros resultados específicos a serem atingidos são sobretudo de CAPACITY-BUILDING, articulated with a DG Cooperation and the

European External Service:

• Estabelecer um mecanismo regional de treino que materialize o

“Projecto Educacional” e que responda às necessidades regionais na área da segurança marítima;

• Incrementar o nível de partilha de informação marítima e das capacidades estabelecidas quer ao nível da região quer ao de cada

um dos países beneficiários;

• Implementar mecanismos visando a coordenação inter-agência na acção dos Estados no mar;

• Apoiar as Organizações Regionais na definição e implementação das suas estratégias marítimas

A referida Call for Action é da maior importância para a cooperação

portuguesa and that of the EU no que respeita ao mar, no quadro da UE para a acção externa relacionada com a Política Marítima Integrada, pelo

que foram estabelecidos contatos com a France Expertise International

(FEI), the project coordinator , no sentido de estabelecer uma parceria

com aquela entidade para responder à referida Call.

A FEI (France Expertise International) é uma organização do Ministério

dos Negócios Estrangeiros de França reconhecida junto da Comissão Europeia para responder a propostas desta natureza Importa referir que

a relação atualmente existente com a FEI decorre já do envolvimento nos

projectos BlueMassMed, Cooperation Project - Maritime Surveillance (recentemente aprovado) e Pre-Operational Validation do Common Information Sharing Environment – POV-CISE (em planeamento).

Em todos estes mesmos, a FEI tem assumido a responsabilidade pela gestão financeira dos projectos Esta relação tem, por isso, aberto um espaço de oportunidade para o estabelecimento da cooperação internacional ligada ao mar, para os aspectos relacionados com a Ajuda

ao Desenvolvimento e a Assistência Técnica, e onde as DGPMs, em articulation with the member-State’s MFAs , may and should coordinate and ensure the preparation of Eurpeand technical cadres for cooperation

at this level, segundo o modelo de gestão que melhor se possa adequar a este tipo de atuação

O consórcio, liderado pela FEI, integra as seguintes entidades:

• Direction de la Coopération de Sécurité et de Défense – (DCSD)” - Ministério dos

Negócios Europeus e Estrangeiros da França;

• Fundación Internacional y para Iberoamérica de Administración y Políticas Públicas

(FIIAPP) - Espanha;

• Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) - Reino Unido;

Direção-Geral de Política do Mar (DGPM) - Portugal

Participam ainda os seguintes estabelecimentos de ensino de assuntos marítimos de reconhecido valor:

• Satakunta University of Applied Sciences (SAMK) - Finlândia;

• International Maritime Safety Security Environment Academy (IMSSEA) - Itália;

• Szczecin Maritime University (AMS) - Polónia.

Aspetos relevantes of doing so and going about things in this way:

• Visibilidade nacional e comunitária , junto dos países da região e das organizações multilaterais regionais;

• Projeto é neste momento liderado no terreno por um assessor técnico português (militar da Marinha na situação de Reserva fora

a efectividade de serviço, o que garante continuidade na execução

e nos processos de transição), mas pode naturalmente sê-lo por outros Estados-membros ;

• Oportunidade para participação de especialistas temporários, nacionais dos Estados-membros;

• Oportunidade para as Indústrias Nacionais (TIC Marítimas) dos Estados-membros poderem participar concurso fornecimento sistema MIS;

• Necessidade dos assessores nacionais disporem de apoio para obtenção de vistos para todos os países da região pelo período de implementação projecto (3 anos) e, eventualmente, a obtenção de passaportes de serviço;

• Estabelecimento de articulação DGPM-Instituto Camões da Cooperação e da Língua, e nos outros Estados-membros, a instituitions laterais funcionalmente equivalentes

All this, of course, must be coherent with both security and safety, as well as development aspects of both regional and EU concerns.

Here goes an empirical example on how to operationalize this:

Joint actions of DG Trade with ECOWAS/CEDEAO, on a mutually reinfong loop: in the last few months, begininng over a year ago, an interesting set of actions has been ongoing in the Gulf of Guinea and, largely within the economic geographical purviiew of ECOWAS, thath çlargely overlaps with that of the Gulf.

Part of Central Africa i.e STP, Equartorial-Guinea, and Gambia – to just give three examples of reginall sub-Saharan African states – are also there, within the framework of ECAS This feeds into, too, with the newly agreed upon Gulf of Guinea Security Strategy , recently developed by the EU’s External Service (and also, by the way, with the increased U.S attention given a few months back to the Gulf, which Boko Haram’s recent actions only solidified in last week’s EU and U.S statements).

THIS IS THE WAY TO A REALLY INTEGRATED approach, beyond easy political (and sometimes buraeucratic) feel-good declarations

Synergies may, of course, be found within the framework of these systemic convergences: political-military matters raised by innstability in the Mali (Azawad, etc.), and the not unconnected Guinea-Bissau civl unrest (they had a coup d’Ètat in Dcember 2012) and narco-trafficking of cocaine for ground to air missiles brought down by Hezbollah and

al-Qaeda moves down to, shifting down from the Lybian débacle, using

Tuareg guides, well-seasoned in Saharan caravan routes.

I would like to make an incipient policy sugggestion, by “throwing the net wide”

(i) For this to be a REALLY integrated maritime policy , such a FULLY COHERENT and INTEGRATED approach should, by analogy, also extend to adjacent areas, namely the ones in the southern Mediterranean that Europe is interested in, or in Southeast Asia, or wherever, although, of course, their security contexts are not quite the same.

(ii) In order to do this properly, maybe it is time for the Commission, eventually via DG Mare or via another formal path, to appoint a permanent representative on the External Service strucutures – somehow joining that extended family (namely DG Trade, DG Eco, DG Cooperation/EUROPE AID, DG Enlargment, and the External Action Service)

And, somehow projecting it , by linking it up to the EU’s “Common

Security and Defence Policy” (CSDP) That is ot say, by pushing the

type of “extended family” type of integration, up to this other, and more

“strategic”, hard “security and defense”, level.

Curiously, CSDP already actually foresees that Moreover, the European Parliament report suggests this But, let us say, the Report’s proposal was never “echoed” in CSDP texts In fact, funnily, it is not even mentionned there un des bévues domestiques de notre politique communautaire

“soft”, one that, here and elsewhere, in relation to which Union institutions appear to studiously avoid a strategic compass? Or is it simply the outcome of a silo mentality, and its attendant compartimentalizations?

Allow me to put this into perspective: This “projection upwards”, as I called it, of serious “multi-level integration”, would (or will), obviously be one of the possible structuring paths (if I can sort of create a concept here) for “Common Security and Defense Policy”, one that will allow us to better ENHANCE the robust European Maritime Policy we are all looking for (i.e more by making it efficient, and potentially more

consensual, too, by merely using existent structures which are already

there, by simply operating by means of a mere increase in their connectedness) Both internally, at the Commission level and at that of

the Union’s External Action Service, and “externally”, by sort of “cloning

it, by analogy”, at the level of our European “Common Security and

Defense Policy” (CSDP) and could lead to a common defense if the European Council acting unanimously so decides (Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union – TEU) Decisions relating to the CSDP are adopted unanimously by the Council.

Here is how it goes, according to what the black letter of what the Lisbon Treaty clearly stipulates: the High Representative of the Union for Foreign

Affairs and Security Policy (e.g., Baroness Ashton, for now) is responsible for implementing the Union’s Common Security and Defense Policy and for coordinating the civilian and military aspects of the “Petersberg” tasks (Article 43 TEU) Member States may be involved in carrying out these missions under the framework of a “permanent structured cooperation”, the hard version of “reinforced cooperation” in other non-security and defense domains

Such moves actually do serve to fortify the so-wished-for maritime component in the external presence of Europe This also, by the way, has the merit of promoting the development of a sustained set of a substantively new “blue” ocean governance, one which will surely enrich , for both Europeans and regional actors, the linkages between the units of the consensual tripod: development, security, and good governance.

All of it, in the good tradition of European soft power, will softly translate

into “maritime as well as naval power.” This will also amount to innovation.

Innovation, indeed, goes far beyond technology: as ecologists and the

sustainability crowd have taught us, innovation can also be seen as a

bundle of changes on how to do things At issue is not only one of doing

better things, but also one of doing things better Or both.

I repeat, the Gulf of Guinea is just one example among many, unfortunately, of how things are sliding on a rather slippery slope in world security, today Surely, the EU should play a role here We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to wake up to our very tangible contemporary historical responsibilities.