Greek shipping wants more pressure on EU on piracy

Greek MEP, George Koumoutsakos and Shipping and Aegean minister, Kostis Mousouroulis, have backed the call.

Bredima, vp of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and rapporteur for the opinion recently adopted by its, and Koumoutsakos, the rapporteur for the Euro Parliament's resolution on piracy, both maintain the short-term policy now being implemented will not end the tremendous financial and human cost of maritime piracy.

Speaking on 11 March in a special event on piracy, in the Athens office of the Euro Parliament, Bredima, a member of the EESC for over 30 years, and longtime adviser to the Union of Greek Shipowners said: "We are not under any illusion that short-term measures can wipe piracy out."

Instead she insisted on long-term strategies combining capacity building in failed states and direct economic incentives offering credible livelihood alternatives to piracy, together with the proper education of youth, in order to deter them from constantly "feeding" pirates in men.

She said a higher level of cooperation is needed between national coastguards and navies, in pirate-infested countries. At the same time, she said the case of satellite monitoring of all vessels transiting those high risk areas, is another measure expected to be put forward in the near future, in a bid to further limit piracy attacks.

Koumoutsakos noted "a side effect of concentrating anti-piracy efforts" on Somalia was it just "re-emerged in other parts of the world". He said this means the EU needs to "put forward a comprehensive strategy at sea, in order to eradicate the phenomenon", adding "after all, the necessary framework is in place through UNCLOS".

Mousouroulis, said the Shipping and Aegean ministry is willing to put forward more initiatives to the Imo, the EU and other international fora, in order to highlight the piracy issue and adopt more measures.

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