Committee on Security and Defence Ordinary meeting
28 September 2026
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SEDE European Parliament
Follow its sittings00:02 - 01:28
Speaker 1
So colleagues. Please take your seat. Thank you very much. The next point on the agenda is the exchange of views on the EU Ocean Eye initiative. It's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Alison Weston, senior coordinator for maritime security and deputy to the director for security and defense policy in the European External Action Service.
And Ms. Iglika Yakova, deputy head of unit at the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries in the European Commission. So thank you very much for your time. We would be interested to have an update on priorities in the area of EU maritime security and infrastructure protection including the related aspects of the EU Ocean Eye initiative. And so we start and give the floor to each of you for ten minutes starting with Dr. Weston and then afterwards Alison have the possibility. So the floor is yours.
01:28 - 07:48
Speaker 2
Thank you very much. Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here again and together with my colleague from the European Commission. I was just, we were just joking that this is an example of very good inter-service cooperation. We work very closely together on all of these maritime security initiatives, so it's very good that we're able to both be with you together today.
We have our maritime security strategy since 2023, which updated the previous strategy. Of course, many things have happened in the world since 2023, but nevertheless the main strategic objectives are still extremely relevant. And later on this autumn, the EEAS and Commission will be presenting a joint implementation report on that maritime security strategy that takes into account input from EU institutions, EU agencies, but also from our member states to try to provide a comprehensive overview of our activities in the area of maritime security. But today we were asked to talk specifically about some of the aspects within the broader maritime security picture, particularly Ocean Eye and some of our initiatives in the realm of protection of maritime infrastructure. And so I want to locate the comments on those issues within the broader framework of our maritime security strategy, which still continues to guide us.
Of course, the biggest change in the last three years has been the deterioration in the geopolitical situation and the spillover of a number of conflicts and geopolitical competitions into the maritime space. So in many ways, the problems that we have to address in the maritime space are not really going to be resolved alone in the maritime space. They have to be resolved also on land. But from our perspective, we are focusing on the consequences for the maritime domain for our member states, but also for our partners around the world. And of course, the most important message that we knew before, but is increasingly visible, is the extent to which our maritime spaces connect us.
So what happens in one area of the world in a maritime area has a huge impact and huge consequences and implications in other parts of the world. And we've seen that, of course, very clearly this summer with the impact of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and now increasingly with the challenges in the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb. So this is the context in which we're looking at our maritime security initiatives.
They're not only responsibilities for the navies. Navies still have important roles but also many other national and European agencies and services have to be involved to tackle this increasingly complex web of maritime security challenges. And in this strategic context this is where the Ocean Eye is particularly relevant. This is fundamentally an initiative that is aimed at strengthening Europe's ability to observe and to understand the ocean. Because fundamentally it's very difficult to take the right actions to identify the right instruments if you don't actually understand what is happening in your oceans.
And from the EEAS perspective and Iglika will speak with a lot more authority on the Commission's perspective but from our perspective its importance is really in how stronger ocean knowledge can contribute to maritime domain awareness can underpin our resilience can help us protect our critical infrastructure and fundamentally more broadly protect European maritime security and our strategic autonomy. So very briefly in the maritime security strategy in our six strategic objectives we have a number which are extremely relevant from this perspective: stepping up activities at sea, cooperating with partners, enhancing maritime domain awareness, managing risks and threats, strengthening capabilities and investing in education and training. We have already three EU naval operations that are tackling a broad range of maritime security challenges from sanctions enforcement, counter-piracy, protection of critical maritime infrastructure and also increasingly helping to tackle the shadow fleet. And these mandates are evolving to focus much more on maritime domain awareness, information sharing, information analysis, understanding what is in our maritime environment. Another example of this is the EU maritime security exercise which was a key deliverable of the maritime security strategy and the most recent iteration took place in Finland just last week in Helsinki which was an opportunity to test the integrated surveillance mechanism, the Baltic hub if you like that was foreseen in the cables action plan and brought together services from navies, coast guards, EU agencies as well as a number of partner countries to do a live exercise focused on the protection of critical maritime infrastructure.
And this is exactly the type of ecosystem where stronger ocean observation can provide added value. I mentioned maritime domain awareness. This is a phrase that is coming up more and more in our work across maritime security. But of course this is not only about tracking ships. It's not only about identifying where the ships are but it's also combining that information about vessels and their movements with other information about the location of infrastructure, environmental conditions, oceanographic characteristics and patterns of maritime activity.
This is the fusion of data and information that coastal states, that authorities, agencies, services need to be able to tap into to be able to respond to the kinds of challenges. This is particularly important in regions that are difficult to monitor or where our interests extend beyond European waters. So for example we're increasingly starting to see the Arctic as a strategic area that we need to focus on much more directly as the ice melts. We see more traffic in the Arctic. There are more discussions about the possible opening of the northern route but also more interest in the exploitation of the resources that are in existence in this very sensitive marine environment.