EU — 2nd Regional Ministerial Meeting on Piracy and Maritime Security

Joint Com­mu­niqué from the East­ern and South­ern Africa – Indi­an Ocean Min­is­ters and Euro­pean Union High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the 2nd Region­al Min­is­te­r­i­al Meet­ing on Pira­cy and Mar­itime Secu­ri­ty in the East­ern and South­ern Africa and Indi­an Ocean Region 7th Octo­ber 2010, Grand Bay, Repub­lic of Mau­ri­tius

The ESA-IO Min­is­ters and Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Repub­lic of Comoros, the Repub­lic of Dji­bouti, the Repub­lic of Kenya, the Repub­lic of Mau­ri­tius, the Repub­lic of Sey­chelles, the Soma­li Repub­lic, the Repub­lic of South Africa, the Unit­ed Repub­lic of Tan­za­nia, and the EU High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and Vice Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion Baroness Cather­ine Ash­ton meet at Grand Bay, Mau­ri­tius on the 7th Octo­ber 2010. Repub­lic of France/Réunion also attend­ed the meet­ing as a mem­ber of IOC.

In atten­dance are: COMESA, EAC, IGAD, IOC and SADC. In addi­tion to the Min­is­ter of the Repub­lic of Mal­dives, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the fol­low­ing coun­tries and organ­i­sa­tions were also present: People’s Repub­lic of Chi­na, India, Pak­istan, Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and the US, UN, AU, INTERPOL, IONS. The Ministers:

1. express deep con­cern over the per­sis­tent scourge of pira­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly its impact on peace, secu­ri­ty, sta­bil­i­ty and mar­itime secu­ri­ty, its links to transna­tion­al organ­ised crime, as well as its pos­si­ble links to ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties and the chal­lenges it pos­es to pri­vate sec­tor devel­op­ment, region­al and inter­na­tion­al trade, eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion and development.

2. note the rel­e­vant UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tions, the Press State­ment issued dur­ing the 242nd meet­ing of the African Union Peace and Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, the African Mar­itime Trans­port Char­ter and Plan of Action, the AU Dur­ban Res­o­lu­tion and Plan of Action on Mar­itime Trans­port, the Dji­bouti Code of Con­duct the Inter­na­tion­al Mar­itime Organization’s res­o­lu­tion A.1002 (25), the UN Secretary-General’s report on Soma­lia with the 7 options men­tioned in it, and the impor­tant work under­tak­en by the UN Con­tact Group on Pira­cy off the coast of Somalia.

3. also fur­ther note of the COMESA, EAC, IGAD and IOC pol­i­cy organs’ deci­sions to counter pira­cy and for which they have under­tak­en to strength­en bilat­er­al, region­al and inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion for com­pre­hen­sive­ly com­bat­ing pira­cy and pro­mot­ing mar­itime security;

4. recall­ing the Joint Com­mu­niqué of the 1st Region­al Min­is­te­r­i­al Meet­ing and the Euro­pean Union High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Sey­chelles in May 2010 and its com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing dia­logue and coop­er­a­tion to sup­press mar­itime pira­cy in the Indi­an Ocean region, acknowl­edge that sub­stan­tive work has been done since then, espe­cial­ly through the Inter­na­tion­al Sym­po­sium and the Region­al Work­shop in Sey­chelles in July 2010 to enhance domes­tic action plans and to devel­op a com­pre­hen­sive, coher­ent and sus­tain­able Region­al Strat­e­gy and a rolling Region­al Plan of Action against pira­cy and for mar­itime security.

5. also acknowl­edge with appre­ci­a­tion the endorse­ment by the COMESA Sum­mit of the Action Plan for the fight against Pira­cy and that IGAD is for­mu­lat­ing a spe­cif­ic plan of Action for Inland Somalia.

6. recog­nise the cru­cial role of the Euro­pean Union Ata­lan­ta Oper­a­tion, States of the region, and oth­er naval forces in com­bat­ing pira­cy and par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mend­ed Kenya and Sey­chelles as pros­e­cut­ing States, and encour­aged oth­ers to engage.

7. con­sid­er and adopt a Region­al Strat­e­gy (RS) which pro­vides for a region­al frame­work to pre­vent and com­bat pira­cy, and pro­mote mar­itime secu­ri­ty through a three-pil­lar approach: i. Devel­op, agree and imple­ment a Soma­lia Inland Action Plan to counter and pre­vent piracy;

ii. Encour­age States of the region to under­take pros­e­cu­tion of pirates appre­hend­ed in the region with the finan­cial and tech­ni­cal sup­port of the inter­na­tion­al community;

iii. Strength­en capac­i­ties of States of the region to secure their mar­itime zones.

1. adopt a rolling Region­al Plan of Action (RPA) under­pin­ning the Region­al Strat­e­gy which encom­pass­es exchange of infor­ma­tion, coop­er­a­tion, joint action, and capac­i­ty-build­ing as cross-cut­ting principles.

2. agree that the ESA-IO con­fig­u­ra­tion, which includes Mem­ber States and RECS of the region, will be used as Region­al Coor­di­na­tion Mech­a­nism for the time­ly and effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion and fol­low-up of the Region­al Strat­e­gy and Region­al Plan of Action. The Inter-Region­al Coor­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee (IRCC) shall serve as the sec­re­tari­at of this Region­al Coor­di­na­tion plat­form. This may take the form of an annu­al ESA-IO Region­al Min­is­te­r­i­al Meet­ing against Pira­cy (ERMMP) and would also include par­tic­i­pa­tion from key stakeholders.

3. fur­ther agree that the Region­al Strat­e­gy and its Region­al Plan of Action, which are com­ple­men­tary to the AU African Mar­itime Trans­port Char­ter, pro­vide addi­tion­al basis for strength­en­ing coop­er­a­tion with the inter­na­tion­al part­ners such as the UN and EU, in polit­i­cal dia­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion in the fight against pira­cy and for mar­itime security.

4. request the inter­na­tion­al part­ners, espe­cial­ly the EU, to pro­vide the nec­es­sary sup­port and agreed that the Region­al Organ­i­sa­tions and Mem­ber States of the ESA-IO region fol­low-up on the Com­mu­niqué through the Net­work of Con­tact Points on Piracy.

5. decide to remain seized with the mat­ter, called upon oth­er part­ners to col­lab­o­rate with the region to iden­ti­fy sus­tain­able solu­tions on pira­cy and for mar­itime security.

The EU HR/VP Baroness Ash­ton wel­comes the ESA-IO region’s deter­mi­na­tion to work togeth­er in a spir­it of sol­i­dar­i­ty and bur­den shar­ing and reit­er­at­ed the strong com­mit­ment of the EU to coop­er­ate with the region in sup­port of the ESA-IO Region­al Strat­e­gy and Region­al Plan of Action in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the oth­er inter­na­tion­al partners. 

Adopt­ed on the 7th Octo­ber 2010 at Grand Bay, Mauritius 

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union 

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