Roberta Metsola has called on EU leaders to set up an EU-led taskforce to mitigate the socio-economic consequences of the situation in the Red Sea, where cargo vessels are being attacked by Houthi rebels from Yemen.
Speaking at the European Council summit last week, the EU Parliament president pushed for a coordinated effort among the bloc to help more cargo ships traverse the Suez Canal route safely and to ensure enough vessels make stops in insular countries like Malta where businesses can share available space on container ships to facilitate imports and exports during the conflict.
The Houthis, who control much of impoverished Yemen and have been fighting a civil war since 2014, are attacking commercial merchant ships as they make their way past Yemen and into the red sea – the vital waterway leading to the Suez Canal and the east Mediterranean.
Their attacks, centred on the Red Sea’s Bab al-Mandeb southern chokepoint, have disrupted shipping in the route that carries about 12% of global trade. In January, two Malta-flagged ships were “attacked” in the region.
To avert danger, major shipping companies are diverting their routes via South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, entering the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar – a trip which delays cargo by around three weeks.
It would be a coordination of national efforts to allow shipping to continue operating as smoothly as possible
Furthermore, shipping prices soared in recent weeks and some ships have halted stops in Malta, greatly disrupting the import and export business of large Maltese companies.
The task force as proposed by Metsola would take stock of each country’s challenges, resources and capabilities, and find ways to address the challenges by sharing those resources among the bloc to help all states benefit from the most efficient and effective trade routes and strategies during the conflict.
“It would be a coordination of national efforts to allow shipping to continue operating as smoothly as possible,” one Brussels official explained.
“It’s not just an effort to continue pushing ships through the Red Sea safely, but also devising a strategy to have more ships make stops in Malta along their route, or to help businesses share cargo space on several vessels and trucks owned by other countries.”
Similar efforts had been triggered during the pandemic, when the bloc came together to coordinate joint procurement of vaccines, ventilators and other medical supplies to ensure all countries got a fair share of the much-needed resources.