The sea has historically provided a major source of growth and prosperity for significant sections of the world’s population. In today’s interconnected world, the global maritime environment represents a vital asset for much-needed trade and development, transport, energy flows, tourism and environmental sustainability. Yet, the global sea domain is affected by a wide range of diverse, but often interrelated, security challenges and threats, including piracy, maritime disputes, human and drug trafficking, terrorism, overexploitation of marine ecosystems and catastrophes at sea.

Both Europe and Asia offer encouraging examples of national, sub-regional and regional policy measures and mechanisms to counter the risks of a less open and secure maritime environment, but face considerable risks and constraints. These include Europe’s deep-rooted and inefficient silo approach to maritime security, or persisting political mistrust, territorial disputes and potential naval competition among a number of Asian countries. However, the increasingly global ramifications of maritime insecurity require stronger inter-regional cooperation between Europe and Asia, in order to protect the common seas. This event explored whether maritime security can provide an incentive or an obstacle for international cooperation. What the main lessons learnt are in building a cooperative approach in this area in Europe and Asia; and how a more ambitious EU-Asia maritime security agenda can be achieved in the near future.