New program of the EU for the fight against piracy in the Gulf of Guinea

The European Union has introduced a new plan in order to fight the phenomenon of piracy in waters of the Gulf of Guinea, with the objective to increase safety of the marine routes between the seven nations Africans of the region: Benin, Cameroun, Equatorial guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe and Togo.

The new "Critical Maritime Routes in the Gulf of Guinea Programme" (CRIMGO), whose performance will be started in the course of this month and to which an appropriation of 4,5 million euros is assigned, previews to assist the governments of central and western Africa in the initiatives in order to improve safety of the marine routes realized through the formation of the Coastgards and the creation of a net for the exchange of information between the nations and the agencies of the region. The EU has explained that currently the area suffers from a lack of coordination between the Coastgards and that still does not exist a common standard of marine formation; moreover the sharing of information between the nations is insufficient.

Partner of the European plan is the French France Expertise International and Direction de the Coopération de Sécurité ET de Défense, the Direção-Geral Portuguese gives Polítca gives Sea, the Spanish Fundación paralberoamérica Internacional y de Administración y Políticas Públicas, the British Foreign and Office Commonwealth, the Finn Satakunta University of Applied Sciences, the Maritime Pole Szczecin University and the Maritime Italian International Safety Security Environment Academy (IMSSEA). This last one constitutes the international section of the Italian Academy of Marina Mercantile.

Currently - it has remembered the EU - from the Gulf of Guinea they reach in European Union respective the 13% and the 6% of the imports of oil and gas and the actions of piracy and of holdup, the traffic of weapons and drug and the draft of human beings they constitute a real threat for safety of the region African. Nigeria, alone, altogether counts approximately 98 actions of piracy or holdup store clerks in sea and cases of marine pollution recorded between 2008 and 2012.

"In safety absence - it has emphasized the European commissioner to the Development, Andris Piebalgs - the development cannot indeed arrive to the people who of it have need. Here because our new plan, that it will afford to improve safety of the transports in West Africa, is so important. Returning the waters surer, we will help to promote the commerce and the increase and will offer to these populations greater opportunities to earn themselves to live, what of which these nations they have desperately need so".