European Maritime Security: Maritime Border Management and Surveillance in the Mediterranean

      Comments Off on European Maritime Security: Maritime Border Management and Surveillance in the Mediterranean

European Maritime Security: Maritime Border Management and Surveillance in the Mediterranean

Maritime security is a transnational task and requires due to the liquid nature of maritime territorial boundaries a new vision of collective security. Maritime security is intrinsically geopolitical. The EU’s maritime security strategy contains geopolitical elements, taking into consideration the European sea and subsea basins such as the Mediterranean. Contributing to maritime security in the seas beyond the EU’s jurisdictional waters also serves the Union global-strategy. With its visual presence in the global maritime domain, the Union assumes its increased responsibilities as a global security provider. With the 2015 EU’s responses to the refugee crisis, the role of the EU as a global security actor in the maritime domain remains questionable with many of its ad hoc responses to the crisis being more focussed on solving the crisis as quickly as possible involving only a small group of Member States, instead of setting up a permanent system border management and surveillance ensuring a consistent implementation and the soundness of the domestic capacities in all EU member states in light of border (rule of law) standards across the EU. This paper will discuss the EU’s maritime border management and surveillance in the framework of the refugee crisis 2015 in the Mediterranean.


Sabine de Gravesvdegrave@gmail.com

ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa

My name is Sabine de Grave and I am a PhD student in History, Security and Defence Studies at ISCTE-IUL / Military Academy of Lisbon. I have a Master degree in Etudes Européennes à finalité politique at the Université Libre de Bruxelles where I graduated with my master thesis on Security and Defence in the European Union. I, furthermore, obtained a Master degree in Development at the University of Granada where I graduated with my master thesis on development and humanitarian aid for the Sahrawi refugees in the Western Sahara.