Europe's CISE efforts facing headwinds

The European Commission is preparing to knit together and test a network for the exchange of maritime surveillance and other border security-related data among public end-users in 2014 that would, for the first time, draw in Europe's defence community as well.

How to allow industry to "pre-validate" the system's common data-exchange platform without distorting the future public market for the platform, however, is the big dilemma, according to EU sources.

"This pre-validation will be of huge importance to our community and others," an EU military official said on 6 November. "If it fails, it will severely hamper the European Union's ability to put together a common operational picture around its borders."

At issue is the European Union's blueprint for a "common information sharing environment" (CISE) - a data-exchange network to tie together public end-user communities in seven areas: border control, fisheries, customs, the marine environment, general law enforcement, civil maritime safety and security, and defence.