Greece and Cyprus, over the recent years, have been dealing with heavy irregular migration attempts via the Mediterranean Sea and cross-border crime. Their unique geographical position in the South Eastern end borders of the European Union renders them as significant targets for smuggling groups, using small maritime vessels. In these instances, timely effective and secure exchange of information is essential to enable coordination between the two relevant authorities of the two countries is of utmost importance.
The project “Cooperation for increased situational Awareness establishment” (CERETAB) aims to increase the situational awareness at the border area between Greece and Cyprus, by enhancing cooperation and exchange of information between the National Coordination Centers of the two countries.
More specifically, this project will focus on utilizing new, state-of-the-art border surveillance technologies, such as the deployment of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) that will facilitate information exchange in order to prevent cross border crime and irregular migration, and significantly enhance border monitoring and security. Moreover, “CERETAB” will provide an integrated ICT platform that will enable both neighboring countries to exchange and share directly and in near real-time incident-related information in order to promote a more coherent approach on migration management and to fight irregular migration and cross-border crime.
As a result, the “CERETAB” project will facilitate the establishment of a secure information exchange network between Greece and Cyprus that will aid the notion of integrated EU border management. The latter will significantly act to the benefit of all EU Member States, as it will empower close monitoring and even prevention of aforementioned irregular migration activities affecting all EU countries.
After the completion of the project, the integrated borders’ surveillance from both Greece and Cyprus, will contribute to the reinforcement of the sense of security into the Hellenic-Cypriot residency, the wider southeastern Mediterranean area, as well as into the European Union and Schengen member – states, since this will result to the significant enhancement of the border surveillance in a rather susceptible area.
This project’s partnership consists of the European & Development Programmes Agency (E.D.P.A./Y.D.E.A.P) of the Hellenic Ministry of Citizen Protection as the coordinator and the Ionian University, the Cyprus Police and the KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence at the University of Cyprus, as partners.
The “CERETAB” project is funded by the European Commission Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME).
