EU CRIMARIO III: Critical Maritime Routes Indo-Pacific

Context

In recent years, the complex maritime security landscape in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia has led to a considerable escalation of pirate activities and acts of armedrobbery at sea in terms of geographical spread, number of incidents reported, level of violence against seafarers, period of detention and ransom payments. Accordingly, several coastal states in the regions have increased their capacities to improve maritime domain awareness (MDA) with a focus on  informationsharing and operational coordination at sea. CRIMARIO was establsihed to assist such states in this regards, particularly through the use of innovative technology.

CRIMARIO I was formulated to enhanceMDA in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) in 2015, laying important ground work for maritime data information exchange through the development of IORIS – an information sharing and incident management platform. CRIMARIO II builds on the experience of the first phase by expanding the geographicalscope of the project towards South and Southeast Asia, the Pacific and South American states with a Pacific coast, with a view to contributing to safer and more sea lines of communication, to facilitate the free flow of trade. This is being done by promoting cross-sectoral, inter-agency and crossregional cooperation. 

While enhancement of maritime information exchange and operational coordination remains one of the main pillars of CRIMARIO, the scope of the new phase includes enlargement to the rest of Latin America, focused seminars on specific threats which need to be addressed by an inter-agency approach, such as drug-trafficking; and direct support in ongoing operations.

The EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific (2021) aims to encourage the consolidation of information-sharing mechanisms, including through IORIS. 

Overall objective

CRIMARIO aims to enhance maritime security and safety through cross-sectoral, inter-agency and cross-regional cooperation

Specific objectives

• To enhance partners' capacities to govern their maritime zones and address maritime threats through inter-agency and regional cooperation.
• To ensure IORIS' credibility, long-term use and sustainability.

Concrete activities

• Enabling of IORIS to become the prime information exchange tool of choice for governmental organisations, and progressively the maritime industry, where feasible.
• Capacity-building activities and trainings on maritime security and safety, focused on Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA).
• Organisation and participation in maritime exercises, based on the IORIS platform.
• Regular coordination with over 55 countries and regional organisations (e.g. IOC, ROCRAM, DCoC, etc).

Expected results

• Improvement of partners’ capacities to share information (communicate) with one another at the national and regional level.
• Improvement of partners’ capacities to coordinate operations and cooperate at the national and regional level.
• Further development of the IORIS platform to meet the requirements of the user communities, including ports and shipping.
• Strengthening of the neutrality of IORIS.
• Progressively securing of non-EU funding of IORIS.

Achievements

• Development and launch of IORIS in September 2018. IORIS is a web-based platform created for a secure real-time exchange of maritime information among different agencies both within countries (to enhance national inter-agency cooperation) as well as regionally. Its purpose is to improve coordination and responsiveness to incidents at sea.
• Institutionalisation of IORIS governance via the establishment of the IORIS Steering Committee (since May 2023).
• Since 2020, provided support to 100+ civilian and military agencies from over 50 countries through trainings and the provision of IORIS.
• 470 capacity-building activities, including crisis response trainings and exercises, gathering over 5,000 participants from across the Indo-Pacific region.
• Operational support to the counter-narcotics operation ORION, and Red Sea/Horn of Africa operations involving EUNAVFORs Atalanta and ASPIDES, including 180 merchant ships.