Sea Control - Sea Control 243 - Charting a Course Through Stormy Waters with Tania Letici

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

Links1. "Charting a Course Through Stormy Waters: The EU as a Maritime Security Actor," by Tania Latici, Branislav Stanicek, and Eric Pichon; European Parliamentary Research Service, February 2021.

Hey folks, Jared here. I have talked about our feed. I'm going to keep talking about it. There are two existing Sea Control feeds out there. The current feed is labeled simply Sea Control and includes the phrase Simsex Flagship Podcast in its description. Sea Control, Simsex Flagship Podcast, that's where you want to be. So please rate and review that feed as well. This episode features John Frerichs as host, and he's interviewing Tanya Lateech, a member of the European Union's in-house think tank on the European Union as a maritime security actor.

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On that note, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Guten Tag, shipmates, and welcome back. Today, we will discuss a recent briefing to the European Parliamentary Research Service called Charting a Course Through Stormy Waters. The EU is a Maritime Security Actor with the lead author, Tanya Letiche. The article was published online in February of 2021. It will be linked in the show notes on the SimSec website. I was fascinated when I came across this brief as it discusses a maritime actor that I was not remotely familiar with, and shame on me for that.

At this point, I'll remind the listeners that all opinions expressed are our own and not reflective of any institutions with which we might otherwise be associated. Tanya, with that, please introduce yourself and please tell me how you came to writing about the EU as a maritime security actor. Hi, John. No, no. Thank you so much for hosting me here in your podcast. I'm really glad to see that our briefing made some waves. And I assume this sort of pun is both acceptable and welcomed here on your podcast. My name is Tania Latic. I am a policy analyst on security and defense covering the EU's security and defense policy, NATO and transatlantic relations in the internal think tank of the European Parliament. Now, American listeners might be maybe a bit more familiar with the Congressional Research Service in Washington, D.C.

And while I work in the homologue of the CRS, but in the European Parliament. And I'm also associated with other policy think tanks like the Egmont Institute in Brussels and the New Strategy Center in Bucharest, Romania. So as I mentioned, I cover what we call the EU's common security and defense policy. And naturally, maritime security is a massive part of that. And yeah, the timing was now right to write about it, and this is for two reasons, I'd say. First, the EU has launched a brand new maritime security initiative in the Gulf of Guinea, about which I'm happy to talk about in a bit. And also the second, because Portugal is currently the chair of what we call the rotating presidency of the EU Council,

which is the institution that basically brings together the diplomats of 27 member states. So naturally, maritime security is a key component of Portuguese interests and strategic thought. So here it is. The timing was just ripe. That's great, Tanya, and I appreciate that. When I think of the EU, I've traditionally thought more about the diplomatic and economic activities. Why does the EU have a role in military and security affairs when there's a NATO alliance? I understand that EU is not NATO, NATO is not EU, but why is the requirement there for the EU to have a maritime role? Well, I think you certainly can't be blamed for having those aspects pop up in your mind when you think about the EU,

especially our American friends can't be blamed for it, I think. But probably the very first thing that we have to point out is that not all members of the EU are members of NATO. So the two only share 21 member states. For instance, countries like Finland, Austria, Sweden, Cyprus or Ireland, they are not part of NATO. And they also have security and defense needs. The second thing that I think we have to point out is that for the security challenges of today, if we think of hybrid threats, threats to critical infrastructure and generally to resilience, but also capacity building in neighboring countries for all of these challenges, the EU does bring unique instruments to the table.

And these are instruments which I think, I'm convinced actually, that they complement NATO and that they complement its mandate of defence and deterrence. And I think particularly if we take maritime security, I mean, this field has military, political, economic, climate, development, all of these aspects are very much intertwined when it comes to maritime security. And the EU truly has unique assets to deal with these issues. It has institutional capacity, crisis response capacity, legal capacity, budgetary capacity, and so on. I think where the EU adds the most value to this field is through a so-called integrated approach,

or perhaps to use a more appropriate expression, an all-hands-on-deck type of policy. And this is, if you will, a very broad strategic vision that the EU has, through which it basically aims to use all of these instruments that I mentioned before in a coherent way. If you think, you know, huge apparatuses like the EU, like many other big bureaucracies, usually see different policies operating in silos. And this is, again, a common trait of big institutions and bureaucracies. But this so-called integrated approach aims to break those silos and to deploy these instruments much more strategically. So while the EU recognizes the primacy of NATO as the main guarantor of territorial defense and deterrence in Europe, and we see this in every public statement, this is 100 percent recognized. At the same time, NATO doesn't have the mandate nor the capacity to deal with all the security challenges in and around Europe.

So that's what I'd say. Getting after the integrated approach that you discussed, you discussed a couple additional concepts within the paper. One is maritime geopolitical activity at sea, and another is the EU maritime strategic orientations. Can you expand upon the two of those? Sure. Maritime trading routes, strategic ports, these have always been, to different extents, exposed to geopolitics and competition, right? This is the case throughout history. history. Today, however, I think we see this manifesting in terms of increasing armed

robberies and piracy on ships. We also see it in terms of increasing illicit arms and drugs trafficking at sea. And we also, I think, see it tragically in terms of human trafficking. So at the same time, I think we can also look at the political aspects of it and take the case of Libya as an ultra-complex case study of geopolitics at play, where we see several international actors compete for influence. This is why, for instance, the EU currently has a military operation in the central Mediterranean to implement the UN arms embargo on Libya and to prevent weapons being smuggled into the country. So you see that maritime security is really at the interplay between politics and the economy and strategy.

So this is kind of the gist of this concept. As for the second one you mentioned, the EU's maritime strategic orientations. For this question, I think you'd probably receive different answers to this question depending on where you go and ask it. But as regards the EU level maritime security, I think it's worth pointing out two main strategies that are important to be aware of. And first is the EU's maritime security strategy. This one dates from 2014 and it was updated several times. And the second is the EU Global Strategy from 2016, which is a broader foreign and security policy strategy. And they make several observations about the EU wanting to be and having this ambition of being a maritime security provider and actor.

If we look at the EU map, for instance, the EU obviously has different seas which have different security challenges, right? For instance, if we take the Black Sea, the Black Sea is really the top strategic issue for defense planners in, for instance, my country of origin, which is Romania. But we've also seen the Black Sea become a hotbed of geopolitical activity, especially since Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and its continued provocations in the region. Then we can also move to the Baltic Sea, which is an additional key strategic hub in terms of energy security, for instance, and is equally witnessing a lot of Russian harassment of civil and military ships. Plus there, obviously, we have Kaliningrad, which doesn't simplify things. And naturally, the Mediterranean is a key strategic concern, given its economic and security importance. And this is, again, where the EU has a military mission. So now if we move away from the EU map and if we go beyond the EU's borders, we can look at the Somalian coast and the Gulf of Aden that are obviously key strategic and economic hubs.

We can look at the Gulf of Guinea and we also increasingly look at the Indo-Pacific. We see that generally it's getting a lot of attention. And there we also see EU member states beginning to send frigates to patrol and project power. The EU is cooking up a strategy for the Indo-Pacific. So there's a lot of activity there. The two main EU naval operations, so there currently are two of them, that are deployed under, as I said, what we call the Common Security and Defense Policy. What, you know, we love to use the acronym CSDP, but I won't use it, I promise. So these two are basically EU naval forces, right?

One is called Operation Irini, which is Greek for peace. And this one is patrolling the central Mediterranean. And then we have EU naval forces Operation Atalanta. And this one is patrolling the Somalian coast since 2008. So I hope this gave you a bit of an overview and outline on the strategic considerations of the EU's maritime security. Now, that's very helpful. And it paints, I think, very well the complexity of the maritime domain and the security challenges that do exist within the maritime domain throughout the theater. If listeners wanted to find out more about some of the EU naval forces that you described

and the operations that you just discussed outside of your report, where else could they find additional information on those? They tend to be super active on social media, actually. So I just suggest a simple follow on Facebook or on Twitter, and you'll get a lot of updates on what they're doing, on how they're helping their host countries fight the COVID pandemic, on what sorts of training and exercises they have with partners. So they tend to be super active on social media. So it's quite easy to follow their activity, I'd say. And of course, follow the EP Think Tank, where me and my colleagues write about these things.

Perfect. And we'll stick links into the show notes on the SimSec website as well for anyone else who wants to track those down. I want to circle back to a question about NATO. Do you think that countries participating or contributing forces to the EU naval forces takes away from their expected contributions to NATO? The EU has its own mechanisms of handling forced generation by member states. And this is because the current EU treaties basically forbid that EU money that is directly from the EU's budget is spent on activities that have so-called military and defence implications. So this led the EU to set up what we call an off-budget mechanism. Sorry for the bureaucratic language, it stops here.

But now in a more catchy tone, this mechanism, this off-budget mechanism was revamped and boosted in the last years, and it is now called the European Peace Facility, EPF, but again, no acronyms. Now, this facility will finance essentially the common operation costs of EU military missions and operations. This covers headquarters, this covers personnel transport, force protection and others. And all other contributions, like staffing, for instance, are handled by member states. Now, this was a bit of a background before directly answering your question. And the answer to your question is no. Just as NATO's own maritime operation Sea Guardian contributes to European security,

the EU's maritime operations contribute to the security of the entire Euro-Atlantic space, because in the end, our interests in maritime security are shared. Now, I think that the argument for the competition of resources is becoming increasingly moot as the threat spectrum widens. And as I said before, the EU has certain instruments that NATO doesn't because they are very different creatures. And I think they certainly complement each other in ensuring comprehensive security. And maritime security is certainly a part of that. Plus, if there were to be this competition for resources, I do think that at the moment, if we would look at it, NATO would be winning because NATO still very much takes priority in national defense planners agenda. That's a fascinating piece of information regarding force generation.

You know, it's not for any coalition. It's not easy to think the synagogue, multiple countries generating forces in support of operations to have the added strain of not being able to have the budget structure there to necessarily finance it. add some interesting challenges to that. So thank you. Let's go back to the Gulf of Guinea. You mentioned that the EU naval forces are operating down in the Gulf of Guinea, or just the EU has become more engaged in maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea. Can you explain why? No, of course. It's a very good question, and it's becoming a very hot topic these days. So I'm happy to put a bit of spotlight on this. Now, obviously, the Gulf of Guinea is a strategic hub in terms of global and regional energy trade, for example. And we've also seen in particular, I think, since 2019, that there has been a 60% increase of acts of violence and an 80%, yes, 80%

increase of armed attacks. That's a lot. And this means piracy, this means kidnapping of seafarers, this means smuggling and robberies. So it's a dangerous place. And this essentially led the EU to apply a new maritime security concept that that are developed in that region and this maritime security concept is called coordinated maritime presences I know it's not the most attractive name maybe it will maybe if it's successful it will it will get a catchier name but this concept basically aims to coordinate all of the assets and the military presence in the region to help with information sharing, with situational awareness, and it also intends to work in a much more coordinated manner with coastal states so that this engagement

with the host countries, with the coastal states, is less ad hoc, if you will, more coherent, more coordinated, and to basically show the added value of doing things at the EU level, because the EU has this coordinating ability, right, as I mentioned, through its institutional capacity. So the idea is to pull our resources together and bring the most added value. And this concept in the Gulf of Guinea was just launched in January 2021. So I think we'll have to wait just a little bit to see actually what comes out of it and what are the results, how it will be reviewed by the EU strategic bodies, because the Gulf of Guinea is currently a pilot where, again, this concept is being tested. Now, the Strait of Hormuz is being

the gossip in town, which you can barely hear these days because of COVID. But still, the word is that the Strait of Hormuz might be another candidate for where this concept might be applied. That's fascinating. It will be interesting to see in the months and the years to come from an assessments perspective, what the metrics are, and how they can attribute whether they've been successful or not successful. Additionally, you discussed the Permanent Structured Cooperation Activities, or PESCO. What are these, and how do you see them contributing to maritime security? So, PESCO is really one of my favorite topics. I'm also doing a part-time PhD, well, in my weekends, and it is on PESCO, so I'm always happy to talk about this.

PESCO is basically a coalition, if you will, of EU member states that have chosen to deepen their defence and military cooperation by using the EU framework. This framework is essentially laid out in law, so in the treaties of the EU, and EU member states decided a couple of years ago to launch this. So it's quite a new thing. We're still, again, trying to see how it works, how it can deliver results. But the basic gist of it is that, let's say it has two main aims. First, it aims to decrease the current fragmentation of European defense industries because currently they operate very much on a national basis and there's a lot of duplication and a lot of waste. And PESCO aims to help these countries to develop defense projects jointly, so multinational projects, to decrease this fragmentation. And then the second aim is to hopefully help develop what we call a common strategic culture, which means that EU countries begin to see with the same strategic vision or have the same strategic vision much more in the future. At the moment, as we say, they have different strategic cultures, which means their strategic thought is very much shaped by their geography, by their history and other elements.

So the aim is to bring these together much more coherently so that would empower the EU to act jointly much more effectively. This was a bit of background. Now, the backbone of permanent structured cooperation, in short, PESCO, I hope this is an acceptable acronym. The backbone of PESCO are its projects. Now, we currently count 47 projects, and they basically aim to develop defense capabilities in several areas. They cover cyber, they cover ISR, they cover airspace and land systems, and, of course, they cover the maritime field. How can they not? Now, the briefing that I co-wrote includes more details on this, but currently, and broadly speaking, There are around six projects out of those 47 multinational projects that we could say directly aim to boost maritime capabilities.

And these look at maritime surveillance, at developing a patrol corvette, an unmanned anti-submarine system, I think it was, and several others. And I think everyone should wish that the PESCO initiative and its project succeed, because this also means that NATO could benefit from the results. So NATO could also reap the benefits from this, since literally any capability that is developed through PESCO could also be deployed in a NATO context. So I think everyone has an interest for this to succeed. I absolutely agree. And when I was reading the six different specific projects that have relevance to maritime security, that was my initial exact thought was the relevance to any NATO ally or partner would have exact interest within that same project. So it would be fascinating to see it as those develop and continue to progress. Lastly, you discussed maritime multilateralism.

It read very buzzword-y for me initially, but then as I read on and worked through your argument, I found myself agreeing more and more. Can you explain the concept of maritime multilateralism? Sure. So, I mean, I'm happy that there were some buzzword-y words there because some of them have quite bureaucratic names, so at least that. No, so by maritime multilateralism, I meant essentially how the EU works with partners at sea. Now, naturally, multilateralism is in the DNA of the EU.

It really is. So I thought it's also important to zoom into this as well in the briefing from a maritime security perspective. Now, by choice and by design, even, the EU works very closely with partners in terms of security and defense. Now, in peacekeeping, for instance, the UN is its closest partner. And we already spoke about NATO. Now, with NATO, it wasn't always plain sailing, if you will. But more recently, we have seen EU-NATO cooperation reaching really unprecedented height. As regards maritime security, for instance, the predecessor of Operation Irini,

which is currently operating in the central Mediterranean, its predecessor was called Operation Sophia. And it was charged with countering human trafficking in the Mediterranean. Now, Operation Sophia had operational cooperation and engagements with NATO Sea Guardian, for example. And everyone I spoke to who was covering this topic was really happy about this, because in the end, those two maritime operations have the same aim of ensuring a free and safe Mediterranean. At the moment, this cooperation between Irini and between Sea Guardian is under a question mark. and this is simply because of the political obstacles that stand in the way of further EU-NATO cooperation.

So this is a bit difficult because of these political issues, but I think it certainly has immense potential for the entirety of Euro-Atlantic security, and I can only advocate for it to increase. Now, other than that, in terms of multilateralism, the EU is also working closely with ASEAN, it's working closely with the African Union, with the host states, of course, that we mentioned, coastal states, And of course, with strategic partners. For example, we had countries like Colombia, South Korea, Japan and of course, the United States participate in training activities and exercising with Operation Atalanta along the Somali coast, where again, we see that our interests are increasingly converging. And as I said, it really is in the DNA of the EU to cooperate with like-minded partners and maritime security is certainly no exception. Thank you for that. And just the number of engagements you just identified and listed off, as I was reading through the report, for me, it was truly mind-blowing to see how far and how expansive EU is with regards to executing operations in support of the maritime security.

So finally, as all the guests come to the program with different views and backgrounds regarding the maritime domain, I ask you to help me expand my own perspective as I wrestle with the topic. How do you personally define maritime security? It's not an easy question, but I think there are several elements here that really depend on one another. And I've hinted at this before, at all these elements that are intertwined. To me, when ships are safe, when people are safe, when international law is respected, when trade and navigation are free, when the environment and biodiversity are protected, that's when we have maritime security. And I think that's what we have to work towards. So that would be my answer.

Thank you. That's very clear and succinct, and I appreciate that. Some of the human element aspects, particularly in the human trafficking, not a topic I typically associate with maritime security, but something I've realized that I need to go, I think, expand my own awareness within that area. Tanya, my sincere appreciation for coming on the podcast today to discuss your report. Thank you for having me. To the listeners, highly recommend that you check out the report, as it offers insight to an emerging maritime security actor that possesses maritime interests across multiple geographic regions.

Thank you for listening, and until next time, guten tag! © transcript Emily Beynon Come on, put it in the alley, put it out of your mouth.