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The 5th Workshop on International Joint Operations was held between 30 May and 1 June at the University of Alicante’s School of Law.
Sponsored jointly by the Civil Guard General Directorate and the National Distance Learning University (UNED), through the Institute for Internal Security Research (IUISI), this year’s edition focused on the situation at the European Union’s external borders, how joint international operations are conducted and how to promote the exchange of know-how and experiences in the area of public security.
This open academic forum presented different perspectives on the joint policing, legal and political operations that are being carried out by various international institutions in an effort to control migration flows in the Mediterranean. The ultimate purpose of these operations is to design and implement effective mechanisms to avoid the loss of life and people trafficking.
As part of this coordinated and cooperative effort, the Civil Guard has prepared the National Situational Picture demanded by the European Commission through the EUROSUR regulation, which allows monitoring in real time the maritime traffic in areas close to EU borders.
This joint and combined Situational Picture is managed by the Civil guard’s Maritime Surveillance Coordination Centre, which is equipped with the resources and staff needed to carry out its permanent command and control functions over Civil Guard units in the area of border surveillance.
The Civil Guard General Directorate invited ISDEFE to take part in this forum to explain its contributions as the specialised in-house resource in Systems Engineering applied to the search for Defence and Security solutions.
Isdefe has been providing its know-how and services to this General Directorate since 1998, when the initial work was done to design a system to monitor irregular maritime traffic in the Strait of Gibraltar, a system that was subsequently deployed through most of the Spanish mainland and archipelagos under the name Integrated External Surveillance System (SIVE).
The Head of the Border Protection Unit of Isdefe’s Defence and Security Department, Mr José Antonio Díaz Bermudez, was tasked with explaining how Systems engineering contributes to the process of providing operational capabilities for controlling borders during joint operations. During his presentation, he offered a review from a historical, methodological and technological perspective of the different activities and projects already conducted and those being carried out now by law enforcement agencies as part of their mission to monitor and control the external borders of Spain and the European Union.