EU Lessons from Fighting Piracy

Reflections on EU chair of CGPCS.

EU Lessons from Fighting Piracy off Somalia’s Coast

One of the priorities of the 2014 EU Chairmanship of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) has been to adequately document the lessons learned from the Contact Group. According to a study recently published by ‘European Union Institute for Security Studies’, the Contact Group grew from a limited diplomatic initiative launched in 2009 as an elastic instrument in the fight against Somali piracy and, by 2014, had stimulated effective and coordinated action by stakeholders from virtually every sector of global society affected by the problem of piracy. The study notes that, as a result of this international initiative, firstly, no commercial ship has been captured since 10 May 2012; secondly, pirates are holding no merchant ship for ransom; and, thirdly, fewer than 50 hostages remain in captivity, all of whom were taken by pirates on or before 26 March 2012.

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Source: eubulletin.com