EU-Mauritius Transfer Agreement of Suspected Pirates

State­ment by High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cather­ine Ash­ton on the sig­na­ture of the EU-Mau­ri­tius Trans­fer Agree­ment of Sus­pect­ed Pirates
Cather­ine Ash­ton, the High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Union for For­eign Affairs and Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy and Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Com­mis­sion, made the fol­low­ing state­ment today:
“I am delight­ed that the excel­lent coop­er­a­tion we have with the Gov­ern­ment of Mau­ri­tius in the fight against pira­cy has result­ed in the sig­na­ture of the Euro­pean Union-Mau­ri­tius Trans­fer Agree­ment of Sus­pect­ed Pirates this week.

I con­grat­u­late the Gov­ern­ment of Mau­ri­tius for join­ing hands in the fight against pira­cy and for the pro­mo­tion of mar­itime secu­ri­ty, in line with the region­al strat­e­gy and action plan endorsed by the 2nd region­al min­is­te­r­i­al con­fer­ence held in Mau­ri­tius last year.

Pira­cy is an inter­na­tion­al scourge affect­ing all of our ship­ping and also aid efforts in the region off the Horn of Africa. We can only find solu­tion to this prob­lem by work­ing togeth­er. The root caus­es of pira­cy lies on land, in the con­tin­ued insta­bil­i­ty of Soma­lia. The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty is work­ing togeth­er to assist Soma­lia in reestab­lish­ing peace, secu­ri­ty and rule of law and to cre­ate the con­di­tions for eco­nom­ic growth.

At sea the EU is lead­ing inter­na­tion­al efforts against pira­cy off the coast of Soma­lia with EUNAVFOR Ata­lan­ta oper­a­tion. But, as I stressed at the region­al min­is­te­r­i­al con­fer­ence last year, pre­ven­tion is not enough. Impuni­ty only encour­ages crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. The EU is close­ly coop­er­at­ing with a num­ber of coun­tries in the region on pros­e­cu­tion and deten­tion of cap­tured pirates. This agree­ment is a con­crete result of such cooperation.” 

Back­ground infor­ma­tion:
The EU-Mau­ri­tius Trans­fer Agree­ment of Sus­pect­ed Pirates defines the con­di­tions and modal­i­ties for: (i) the trans­fer of per­sons sus­pect­ed of attempt­ing to com­mit, com­mit­ting or hav­ing com­mit­ted acts of pira­cy with­in the area of oper­a­tion of EUNAVFOR Ata­lan­ta on the high seas off the ter­ri­to­r­i­al seas of Mau­ri­tius, Mada­gas­car, the Comoros Islands, Sey­chelles and Reunion Island and detained by EUNAVFOR; (ii) the trans­fer of asso­ci­at­ed prop­er­ty seized by EUNAVFOR from EUNAVFOR to Mau­ri­tius; and (iii) the treat­ment of trans­ferred per­sons. It was signed by the Head of EU Del­e­ga­tion to the Repub­lic of Mau­ri­tius Alessan­dro Mar­i­ani and Mrs Fong Weng-Poorun, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary for Home Affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office, on 14 July. This sig­na­ture was accom­pa­nied by the sig­na­ture of two pro­grams for addi­tion­al finan­cial sup­port from the Euro­pean Union for imple­ment­ing the Trans­fer Agree­ment. The Euro­pean Union and UNODC signed a joint pro­gramme to sup­port the tri­al and relat­ed treat­ment of pira­cy sus­pects in Mau­ri­tius. Ambas­sador Mar­i­ani and the Hon­ourable Min­is­ter of Finance, Pravind Jug­nauth, also signed an Adden­dum to the Nation­al Indica­tive Pro­gramme for Mau­ri­tius to cov­er fur­ther needs and to com­pen­sate, in sup­port to the fight against pover­ty, the addi­tion­al costs to the econ­o­my and to the Gov­ern­ment incurred to respond to piracy.

Relat­ed infor­ma­tion:
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/116942.pdf
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/116910.pdf
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/eeas/security-defence/eu-operations/eunavforsomalia.aspx?lang=en

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union 

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