EFCA has activated its BCP protocol in an exercise today.
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EFCA celebrated Europe Day in an event held in its offices in Vigo on Wednesday, 10 May 2017. Representatives of civil society organisations, the fisheries sector, scientists, as well as national, regional and local authorities, joined the agency’s staff on this occasion.
The Executive Director, Mr Pascal Savouret, quoted the most iconic passages from the Schuman Declaration. It was this historic text that set the course to prevent future war by fostering economic and political cooperation among Europe’s states, leading to the creation of the European Union. After a nod to the 60 year anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome celebrated earlier this year, the Director briefly presented the main results of EFCA’s activities in 2016.
There were speeches from the Mayor of Vigo Mr Abel Caballero, the representative from the Galician regional government Ms Covadonga Salgado, and the Deputy Director General for fisheries control and inspection from the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and Environment, Ms Teresa Molina, who highlighted the Agency’s excellent working relationship with all levels of the Spanish government.
More details in the Press Release.
This week EFCA is conducting a 'training for trainers' session on Fisheries control and inspection for GFCM countries. 13 trainers from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria are participating in the training session.
This week (16-18 May 2017), Frontex held operational activities with EMSA and EFCA in the Black Sea, with the aim of supporting national authorities with coast guard functions.
Today, EFCA mourns the victims of yesterday's tragic attack in Manchester.
We would like to express our great sadness and solidarity with the relatives and friends of everyone affected by this brutal act and extend it to the people of United Kingdom.
EFCA´s flags will be at half-mast today and a minute of silence will be held at 15h00.
Last week (23-26/05/2017), representatives from 20 European countries with sea borders joined Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, along with officials from the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA), and the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) in Portugal to move forward with the cooperation on European coast guard functions.
During the three-day Coastex2017 Coast Guard exercise hosted by the Portuguese presidency of the European Coast Guard Functions Forum, vessels, helicopters, airplanes and 90 observers from European Coast Guard authorities conducted exercises to test different coast guard functions. The scenarios tested were: detection of migrants, search and rescue, medical evacuation, pollution, illegal fishing, boarding of a ferry transporting a dangerous person, seizure of drugs and arrest of the traffickers.
“I am delighted to see vessels and helicopters from Italy, Spain and Portugal as well as coast guard officers coming from Germany and observers from 20 European maritime countries taking part in this exercise,” said Berndt Koerner, Frontex Deputy Executive Director.
“Running exercises is crucial if we want to be effective at sea because it helps us test the best ways of working together in a variety of scenarios. The aim of this particular exercise, and the numerous seminars taking place behind the scenes, is to develop the best way of conducting coast guard operations together,” he added.
Coast Guard organisations differ from country to country in Europe. In some, the coast guard is mainly responsible for search and rescue, while other national authorities also cover responsibilities related to law enforcement, fisheries, maritime safety or pollution control.
Frontex has been working hand in hand with the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) to cover the full scope of coast guard functions that go beyond border management.
The Closing Workshop of the pilot project "Creation of a European coastguard function" gathered more than 110 participants from various European and national entities at the premises of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) in Lisbon. During the event the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) and EMSA jointly presented the project results.
The 18 months pilot project was launched in January 2016 in order to provide the test bed for the co-operation mechanism proposed by the Commission within the framework of the European border and coastguard package.
The Executive Directors of the three European agencies agreed that the project had demonstrated that there was greater effectiveness when the agencies worked together. The sharing of information, combined use of surveillance capabilities, multipurpose operations can better support the national authorities of European Member States when implementing coast guard functions.
In the framework of the project the three Agencies explored and tested ways to further enhance their cooperation in four areas:
- sharing of information generated by fusing and analysing vessel movement and earth observation data
- providing surveillance and communication services based on state-of-the-art technology
- capacity building
- capacity sharing including multipurpose operations and the sharing of assets and capabilities across sectors and borders
The enhanced cooperation among EMSA, EFCA and Frontex will enable them to support in an effective and cost-efficient way the activities of more than 300 civilian and military authorities in the EU Member States responsible for carrying out coastguard functions in a wide range of areas such as maritime safety, security, search and rescue, border control, fisheries control, customs control, general law enforcement and environmental protection.
EFCA mourns today the victims of the forest fires that occurred in Portugal and would like to express its great sadness and solidarity with the Portuguese people. Our thoughts go out to the families and friends of all those affected by these tragic events.