Spanish Minister of Defense, Pedro Morenés accompanied by the Chief of Defense Staff, Admiral Fernando García and the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Jaime Muñoz-Delgado, attended the multinational Maritime Security exercise ‘Seaborder-13’organized in Portuguese waters from the 1st to the 3rd of October.
This exercise was carried out within the framework of scheduled activities of the ‘5+5 Initiative’ made up of European and African nations from the Western Mediterranean: Portugal, France, Italy, Malta, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, Libya, Algeria and Tunisia. This year the exercise was planned and organized by Portugal.
The domain of ‘Seaborder-13’ was a simulated scenario where a suspect ship, belonging to an international criminal network, was sailing in the Mediterranean Sea and entailed a threat to maritime security for ‘5+5 Initiative’ nations.
‘Seaborder’ was carried out in two stages. The first one was conducted from the Operations Center in Mauritania with support from Italy and Portugal (days 1 and 2) and consisted in getting acquainted with coordination procedures without using force.
The second stage (days 2 and 3) took place in Portimao waters and consisted in a series of drills on communications, maritime interdiction (MIO), search and rescue (SAR) and damage control.
Spain has participated with the patrol boat ‘Vigía’, a Security Team, a maritime patrol aircraft (C-235) and a HD-21 helicopter for SAR exercises.
5+5 Initiative
The ‘5+5 Initiative’ was set up in December 2004 when the Ministers of Defense of Algeria, Spain, France, Italy, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Mauritania, Portugal and Tunisia signed a Declaration of Intent to collaborate in maritime security issues in the Western Mediterranean.
In 2008 the first ‘Seaborder’ exercise was organized and, since then, it has become one of the most important maritime security exercises of the ‘5+5 Initiative’.
[mappress] Press Release, October 10, 2013; Image: Spanish Navy