EU Coast Guard: a Governance Framework Based On the Principles of Sustainable Development.

In recent years, Europe is facing an unprecedented wave of migration via sea routes. Gaps and weaknesses of the EU sea borders system are used by thousands of migrants to enter EU territories. More than 1.5 million persons have crossed the EU borders illegally during 2015. So far, the EU reaction was marked by divergent policies and positions between EU Member States, either in terms of responsibilities (National vs. European) or in respect of required actions and resources (border control means, asylum and return policies, large scale search and rescue cooperation). This paper explores the viability of a new governance approach for managing EU maritime challenges based on the principles of sustainable development and the concept of the European Union Coast Guard. The outcome is based on the results of using the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development as an investigation and analysis tool. This is an attempt to test the applicability of this framework methodology outside of the traditional ecological aspects of the marine environment into the sociotechnical area of maritime domain awareness. The conclusions support the establishment of the EU Coast Guard and outline guidelines for a potential governance model.