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    • Frontex, EMSA and EFCA extend cooperation

    2016-05-25

    Frontex, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) signed bilateral interagency agreements today to extend their cooperation. The three agencies will continue to work together in their respective areas of border surveillance, interception of vessels suspected of engaging in criminal activities, cross border crime, support for search and rescue at sea and illegal fishing.

    Frontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri, EMSA Executive Director Markku Mylly and EFCA Executive Director Pascal Savouret took part in the official signing ceremonies at the Frontex headquarters in Warsaw.

    “Thanks to our cooperation, Frontex, EMSA and EFCA have been involved in combatting illegal activities, such as arms and drug smuggling. We have also been able to save lives by helping to locate several boats with migrants stranded at sea,” said Fabrice Leggeri.

    Under the new Frontex-EMSA bilateral agreement, EMSA will continue to provide valuable services to Frontex when supporting the Member States to perform border surveillance, interception of vessels suspected of engaging in criminal activities and cross border crime and search and rescue at sea.

    EMSA assists Frontex in providing several Eurosur Fusion Services (EFS), including tracking of vessels suspected to be engaged in criminal activities and people smuggling and monitoring of suspicious activities.

    With EMSA’s support, Frontex will also continue the implementation of a Copernicus Delegation Agreement to support several monitoring services, including satellite detection of vessels. Copernicus is a European system for monitoring the Earth using data satellites and other sensors. It consists of a complex set of systems which collect data from multiple sources: earth observation satellites, along with ground stations, airborne and sea-borne sensors. Frontex is to implement satellite services dedicated to border surveillance as part of the Copernicus programme.

    The Frontex-EFCA bilateral agreement aims at sharing additional information on fishing vessels.