Some MEPs demand equal rules across the EU allowing merchant vessels to carry armed guards off Somalia.

Maritime piracy: a continuing menace

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/12661261/n001-120315-001-enx_mf.srt

Better news from the seas  off the Horn of Africa.

Pirate attacks on merchant shipping  are declining according to latest figures.

This, as the EU has extended  the EU NAVFOR intervention force

But the fact that attacks  are still happening concerns MEPs

who debated counter measures  against piracy.

France says there were  more than 700 attacks in 2010.

The human and economic cost  is still enormous.

often in appalling conditions  at sea or on land.

In 2011, the cost of piracy to the world  economy was more than 5 billion euros.

beside the cost of insurance, theft, security,  and re-routing to safe areas.

Some MEPs want rules allowing companies  to protect crews and cargoes

with private security  to be harmonised across the EU.

When pirates are coming to a ship,  they shoot at these pirates,

not to hit them, but they shoot, let's say,  ten metres before the ship,

and then the pirates know there is an armed  person on the ship and so won't board it.

Somalia is a failed state, with no rule of law  and few functioning services,

Some MEPs are calling  for alternative solutions

in a wider and deeper EU engagement  inside the country.

The EU must continue  with social development programmes,

with institutional and political development.

in also intervening  in the piracy problem.

Meantime, Somalis continue  to live in poverty,

their country tyrannised by extremism  and criminality at home and at sea.