The EUNAVFORMed Irini Operation and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, announced on Monday, 18 January that on Friday, 15 January they signed a working agreement to strengthen their cooperation.
According to an Irini communiqué, thanks to this arrangement, the Operation and the Agency “will support each other with a primary focus on cross-border crime and in developing situational awareness in any possible manner, including by a coordinated use of satellite images”.
Frontex will support Irini with information gathered in the framework of the Agency’s risk analysis activities, such as the monitoring of vessels on the high seas likely to carry out illegal activities, as well as data from its aerial surveillance in the central Mediterranean, says a statement from the Agency.
The Operation and Frontex will also be able to coordinate their mutual capacity building efforts to promote European standards of integrated border management.
“This cooperation will include exchange of analyses, reports and best practices, deployment of experts and tactical coordination for the use and rationalisation of the respective assets”, adds Operation EUNAVFORMed. An Irini expert has already been seconded to Fontex’s Warsaw headquarters to “support information exchange and cooperation in search and rescue operations”, according to Frontex.
Frontex had already worked with the operation that preceded Irini, EUNAVFORMed Sophia. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)