Piraterie / NATO

Stand­ing NATO Mar­itime Group 2 Oper­a­tional Han­dover

Naples (ITA) – Com­modore Steve Chick, UK Navy today relieved Rear Admi­ral Gio­van­ni Gumiero Ital­ian Navy as com­man­der of the Stand­ing NATO Mar­itime Group 2 (SNMG2) dur­ing an Oper­a­tional Hand-over in Sou­da Bay (Greece). The cer­e­mo­ny was presided by Vice Admi­ral Mau­r­izio Gemignani, Ital­ian Navy, Com­man­der Allied Mar­itime Com­po­nent Com­mand Naples.
SNMG2 will replace the sis­ter Force SNMG1 that is cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing the counter-pira­cy Oper­a­tion Allied Pro­tec­tor off the Horn of Africa and in the Gulf of Aden.

Address­ing the crews of SNMG2, Vice Admi­ral Gemignani praised them for the results achieved dur­ing the past year and stat­ed: “The pri­ma­ry role of mar­itime secu­ri­ty in the Mediter­ranean Region and its approach­es rests with you. Oper­a­tion Active Endeav­our, estab­lished under the umbrel­la of Arti­cle 5 of the NATO Treaty, demon­strates Tthe Alliance’s resolve to effec­tive­ly and active­ly deter, defend, dis­rupt and pro­tect the mar­itime envi­ron­ment against ter­ror­ism, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly under­go­ing a process of renew­al and con­tin­u­ous adap­ta­tion to improve capa­bil­i­ties in the area of Mar­itime Sit­u­a­tion­al Aware­ness.”: He also added: “New needs for mar­itime secu­ri­ty are emerg­ing in many oth­er parts of the world. One of these is the need to elim­i­nate the risks of attacks by pirates as it is cur­rent­ly hap­pen­ing off the Horn of Africa. These attacks are putting at risk thee prin­ci­ple of free­dom of nav­i­ga­tion and the free flow of mar­itime trade.”

Com­modore Chick in his mil­i­tary career has par­tic­i­pat­ed in sev­er­al oper­a­tional deploy­ments, to include two Adri­at­ic deploy­ments in sup­port of oper­a­tions in Bosnia. He has com­mand­ed HMS Not­ting­ham dur­ing a deploy­ment to the Mid­dle East and Far East and Oper­a­tion Bolton (Iraq); and HMS Chatham, dur­ing a fur­ther Mid­dle East deploy­ment and involve­ment in dis­as­ter relief oper­a­tions off Sri Lan­ka fol­low­ing the Tsunami.

Sum­ma­riz­ing the oper­a­tional, train­ing and diplo­mat­ic activ­i­ty of the past year, Rear Admi­ral Gumiero said: “SNMG2 has trav­elled more than 43,000 nau­ti­cal miles, vis­it­ing 65 ports in 19 dif­fer­ent nations, nine of them belong­ing to NATO, one to the Part­ner­ship for Peace pro­gramme, two the Mediter­ranean Dia­logue and sev­en to oth­er non-NATO nations.”
SNMG2 is a per­ma­nent­ly acti­vat­ed multi­na­tion­al NATO mar­itime force, led by a multi­na­tion­al staff, cre­at­ed as a high readi­ness group, mobile and flex­i­ble across the broad spec­trum of mis­sions. Com­mand of the Force peri­od­i­cal­ly rotates amongst NATO nations. SNMG2 usu­al­ly oper­ates under the Allied Mar­itime Com­po­nent Com­mand Naples and is part of the mar­itime com­po­nent of the NATO Response Force.

The Force rou­tine­ly par­tic­i­pates in NATO’s anti-ter­ror­ism oper­a­tion Active Endeav­our and con­duct­ed the first NATO counter-pira­cy oper­a­tion, Allied Provider, in 2008. In addi­tion to its oper­a­tional duties, the Force par­tic­i­pates in exer­cis­es with NATO, Part­ner­ship for Peace and Mediter­ranean Dia­logue navies and rep­re­sents the Alliance dur­ing vis­its to non-NATO ports.

Source: NATO