The EU Council reviews Aspides and Atalanta naval missions, both will focus on underwater security

Brussels – Aspides and Atalanta, the European Union’s naval missions, are being strengthened in terms of their mandate and tasks in the interests of maritime safety and the protection of trade flows. Through two separate decisions, the Council of the EU has updated the objectives of each operation, starting with Aspides. 

Launched in February 2024, Aspides is the EU response to the operations of the Houthis, Yemeni rebels who had begun targeting international cargo ships passing through the Red Sea. The EU naval mission, designed to defend and escort civilian commercial vessels, will from now on also be responsible for gathering and sharing information on suspicious activities relating to critical subsea infrastructure, and contributing to capacity building through the training of the maritime forces of Djibouti, an African country on the Red Sea opposite Yemen. Furthermore, the amendment to the mandate will allow Aspides to cooperate with the Yemeni coastguard. 

The need to review the Aspides mission stems from the war that the United States and Israel have launched against Iran, and the resulting blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which is preventing the transit of goods and, above all, oil tankers. As a key commercial hub for the global economy, keeping the Suez Canal—and therefore the Red Sea—open becomes even more crucial to preventing a complete disruption of supplies.

The Atalanta Mission, on the other hand, dates back to 2005 and was deployed as part of anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. As with Aspides, Atalanta’s activities now include not only patrolling and countering hostile vessels in the name of free maritime navigation, but also gathering and sharing information on suspicious activities related to critical subsea infrastructure. With the mission update, monitoring of illicit coal trade has been suspended, while secondary tasks of monitoring arms, drug trafficking, and illegal fishing remain in place. 

From now on, both EU naval missions will be required to cooperate more actively with other EU missions, foremost among them the Crimario mission, in order to protect the shipping lanes deemed to be of priority importance for the Indo-Pacific region, for which the EU has had a clear strategy of geopolitical and geostrategic significance for almost a decade now.