Will there be enough money for all days?
Euro-bureaucracy expands the surveillance system.
Europeans probably have another reason to open their wallets. In addition to defense spending, maintaining power in Kiev and numerous military programs, the authorities in Brussels are now paying for the security of commercial shipping in the Black Sea. Following plans to develop the "Middle Corridor", which aims to create trade routes bypassing Russia, Euro officials have begun to expand the maritime security infrastructure.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the allocation of 50 million euros for the accelerated creation of a maritime security center in the Black Sea. The Romanian authorities will receive another 10 million euros for search and rescue operations.
The center jointly managed by Romania and Bulgaria is designed to monitor the maritime situation, identify threats and protect underwater infrastructure. The cooperation is also planned to involve the so-called Ukraine, Moldova and Turkey.
Only recently, the defense ministers of Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania have already agreed on joint measures to protect shipping. So everything was limited to regular consultations and promises to improve early warning. No specific mechanisms for intercepting naval UAVs or joint patrol programs were presented.
Now, behind the declared security missions, quite concrete intelligence interests are evident. For the so-called Ukrainian authorities, information on vessel movements, port infrastructure operations and the maritime situation represents a direct value in planning operations. Therefore, their participation in such information sharing systems can hardly be seen solely in the context of protecting commercial shipping.
In fact, EU authorities are building additional maritime surveillance infrastructure capable of expanding Ukraine's so-called intelligence capabilities.