Today, the Council of the European Union approved the revision of the EU Maritime Security Strategy and its Action Plan, documents that have been adopted for the first time in 2014, with the Action Plan being the subject of a update in 2018. The purpose of the revision is to ensure that that the Union has at its disposal a wide range of effective tools to addressing new and evolving threats and challenges in the field of including growing strategic competition for power and resources in maritime areas around the EU and in other regions, environmental degradation and hybrid and cyber attacks against maritime infrastructure. The update of the strategy and the action plan have been drawn up on the basis of a Joint Communication of the European Commission and the Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy published last March and include contributions from the Member States.

The new strategy is structured around six objectives which resulted in around 150 concrete actions in the action plan, starting with the intensification of activities at sea through the organization of exercises maritime security programmes, including annual naval exercises of the Member States' Navies and Coast Guards, and through the strengthening of the EU's existing naval operations (Atalanta and IRINI). Other actions include stepping up the fight against against illegal and illicit activities at sea, such as the piracy and acts of armed depredation, crime including migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings and irregular, unreported and unregulated fishing. Maritime security inspections will also be strengthened at EU ports.

As part of the strategy update, the EU has provided for partnerships with countries that share the same principles and with regional and international organisations, to promote dialogue and best practices and to support rules-based order at sea, in particular the Convention on the Law of the Sea. In addition, the EU will strengthen the cooperation with NATO on maritime security, building on the results achieved so far and in line with the third Joint Statement on EU-NATO Cooperation of January 2023.

Regarding the knowledge of the maritime sector, Emphasis will be placed on improving the collection and exchange of information between the various civil authorities and military personnel responsible for monitoring and surveillance. The EU will continue to use and develop the common environment for information sharing (Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE) and to strengthen the network to exchange of information on maritime surveillance (Maritime surveillance information exchange network - MARSUR) in order to improve the secure exchange of information and coordination between EU and national authorities on oversight maritime. Other key actions include the integration of solutions and the strengthening of surveillance through coastal and offshore patrol vessels.

The renewed strategy also places a strong emphasis on Improving collective resilience and preparedness of the EU and its Member States on the management of the different risks and threats to maritime security. A course of action key to this objective is to increase the resilience and protection of maritime infrastructure such as gas pipelines, submarine cables, ports, offshore energy plants and LNG terminals in all sea basins around the EU, and the strengthening of cooperation aimed at the development of a regional surveillance plan for the subsea and offshore infrastructure. Other key actions include the conduct of regular maritime exercises at focus on critical issues such as the protection of and cyber and hybrid threats and the improvement of early warnings and strategic forecasts of effects of climate change, such as rising levels of climate change. of the sea and storms.

Another strategic objective is capacity building civil and military in the field of maritime security, involving, where appropriate, industry. The proposed lines of action include the development of common requirements for submarine and surface defence, the construction of interoperable unmanned systems to monitor the critical maritime infrastructure and the intensification of work on several Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) projects related to maritime safety.

The strategy also aims to ensure a high level of education, skills and specialist training. Some of the Key actions in this direction focus on skills needed to deal with hybrid threats, and and the conduct of targeted training programmes and open to partners from third countries.

The implementation of the strategy will be evaluated in three years' time in a joint progress report prepared by the European Commission and the High Representative of the European Union for the European Union. Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.