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    All at sea? Maritime dimensions of Europe's relations with Africa

    Styan, David (2016) All at sea? Maritime dimensions of Europe's relations with Africa. Insight on Africa 8 (2), pp. 112-130. ISSN 0975-0878.

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    Abstract

    The article examines three dimensions of Europe’s maritime relations with Africa: first, the notion that Europe’s strategic maritime frontiers are linked to Africa; second, the coherence or ‘actorness’ of the European Union’s (EU) anti-piracy force operating off the Horn of Africa; and third, the relationship between the EU’s own military and naval objectives and its wider regional policies in Africa. While the EU adopted a ‘Maritime Security Strategy’ in 2014, the article notes that, in practice, the EU’s strategy at sea has focused on two groups of ‘non-state actors’: the Africans who are ‘pirates’; and the migrants crossing the Mediterranean, who are the object of the EU’s Frontex patrols. As such, the initial question examined charts the somewhat fluid notion of the sea as a maritime frontier: where do Europe’s strategic interests in terms of its maritime frontiers lie? Is the EU’s anti-piracy mission defending them? Is this first-ever maritime mission a more tangible manifestation of EU’s common foreign and defence policy than some of the other shorter and smaller military and policing missions in Africa?

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Maritime security, European Union, Africa, anti-piracy
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Depositing User: Administrator
    Date Deposited: 10 Jun 2016 08:49
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:24
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/15494

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