Rome challenges EU over lax efforts for Red Sea shipping security

Brussels and Rome appear to be on a collision course over their strategies for ensuring the safety of vessels passing through the Red Sea, with the latter expressing growing frustration over the EU's lagging response. 

Italy is now considering using its naval assets already deployed under the EU's Aspides mission to independently escort Italian merchant ships through the Red Sea, as reported by Euractiv.

The move is driven as Rome blames EU bureaucracy for a lack of timely response to a renewed Houthi threat.

Defence Minister Guido Crosetto issued the warning on September 17, as fighting and tensions involving Yemen's Houthi rebels have escalated again, with the group threatening shipping through the Red Sea and contributing to a sharp rise in gas prices.

“We cannot allow bureaucratic delays in decision-making to aggravate an already complex situation,” Crosetto said, announcing that “we have decided, with the Chief of Staff, not to wait for Aspides to decide whether our ships can pass or not”.

The announcement raised questions about Italy's role in the EU's Aspides naval mission, which is active in the Red Sea, with Rome a major contributor and currently holding the rotating command.

“Aspides was not set up as a social outing,” Crosetto said. “We agreed to take part in a mission that serves to protect the maritime trade on which an important part of our economy depends.”

EUNAVFOR Aspides is an EU military operation contributing to the protection of freedom of navigation and safeguarding maritime security, especially for merchant and commercial vessels in the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Gulf under the EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

According to the initiative's official description, the initiative's mandate is to provide maritime situational awareness, accompany vessels and protect them against possible multi-domain attacks at sea.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani praised Crosetto's initiative and called on other EU countries to provide more ships for Aspides, saying some were not making the necessary contribution to the mission.

These statements prompted opposition from Brussels, with a European Commission spokesperson defending Aspides on September 18, saying that the mission's presence in the region “has guaranteed the safety of seafarers” and is helping secure a crucial maritime route amid an “extremely unstable situation”.

The spokesperson also said Aspides and Operation Atalanta, an EU military operation, are making a “fundamental contribution” to protecting maritime traffic, while noting that EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas had called on countries to provide more ships.

By Nazrin Sadigova