10/02/2017
The European Maritime Security Strategy underlines the importance of the maritime lines of communication for the Union economic development. Spain has published a Maritime Security Strategy, approved by the Prime Minister. It considers maritime security as essential for Spain´s National Security. Naval industry is considered as strategic for the national interests. The document links political targets, operational capabilities and industrial support. The strategic conditions will force European countries to assume more operational compromises, thus more cooperation among nations will be needed.
European Navies have lost capabilities during the last decade because of the financial crisis and for the need to focus in non-conventional threats. It will be difficult to set cooperative projects to achieve new capabilities, because most European countries still consider their naval industries strategic for national reasons.
At European Union level, especially from the European Defence Agency, several initiatives have been launched to enhance industrial and technological cooperation. The European Defence Action Plan aims to reduce industrial fragmentation and to enhance cooperation, avoiding redundancies, by setting some investment support to cooperative projects. These measures would affect the naval sector in the long term.
Author: Carlos Calvo González-Regueral
THIS DOCUMENT IS ONLY AVAILABLE IN SPANISH LANGUAGE.