The Critical Maritime Routes (EU CRIMARIO) maritime capacity-building project, established in 2015, is now deemed by many to be an EU flagship initiative in the Indo-Pacific, focused on strengthening regional maritime governance, covering maritime security and safety, and the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. EU CRIMARIO will consolidate what has been accomplished in the Indo-Pacific by intensifying sectoral activities addressing thematic whilst expanding to other countries in Central and Latin America, and selectively in the Caribbean if finances allow, with a view to broadening the IORIS information-exchange platform's reach and tied to this, its sustainability.

Ensuring maritime safety and security is essential, considering that 90% of global trade in goods is transported on the sea, including to and from the EU. Strengthening interoperability through a collaborative approach and enabling effective communication amongst the EU's partners and their maritime agencies is crucial to address evolving maritime threats such as piracy and armed robbery, transnational organised crime, and IUU fishing. By consolidating information exchange mechanisms and building a network around them, national and regional stakeholders can coordinate maritime operations in a timely and decisive manner, to protect national interests. This cooperative approach will promote global maritime stability by fostering safer and more secure sea lanes and potentially ports, and sustainable fisheries, which is vital for economic growth and international trade.

EU CRIMARIO has supported the implementation of the EU's Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific (2021) and the updated EU Maritime Security Strategy (2023), by enabling the EU to cooperate with third States, and contributing to the EU's ambition of becoming a global maritime security provider. EU CRIMARIO's prime focus has been to support partners address maritime security and safety threats and challenges and to a lesser extent address sustainable fisheries. The project was launched in 2015 for the Indian Ocean and was later expanded to cover the entire Indo-Pacific in 2022, from the east coast of Africa all the way across to Latin America’s Pacific coast.

EU CRIMARIO has built its cooperation on the IORIS Maritime Cooperation, Communication and Coordination (MarCo3) platform, which is a neutral and secure advanced software application developed to support cross-sectoral cooperation at the national and regional levels. Though EU CRIMARIO has brought over 150 organisations on the platform including navies, coast guards, and maritime and fisheries authorities, customs, etc from over 60 countries, including several regional and global centres using IORIS, in total over 200 organisations have been trained on the tool as many of them have been trained by CRIMARIO partners themselves. A majority of these organisations use IORIS daily. Additionally, EU Member States' naval assets deployed in the region, EUNAVFOR Operations ASPIDES and ATALANTA also use IORIS as a secure communication link to regional states and even merchant vessels.

This network, now called the IORIS Community, is led by the IORIS Steering Committee (ISC) – a multinational governance body, composed of its most active users, which has been essential to secure the partners’ trust on the platform.

Building on EU CRIMARIO's achievements, the third phase’s focus will move onto intensifying cross-sectoral capacity building in specific areas (such as counter-narcotics, counter-piracy/armed robbery, search and rescue, fisheries, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, legal finish, marine oil pollution), to promote IORIS-based interoperability, to ensure for IORIS' credibility, long-term use and related sustainability.

The Overall Objective of this action is to strengthen maritime security and safety and the fight against IUU fishing. The Specific Objectives of this action are: 1) Partners' capacities to govern their maritime zones and address maritime threats are enhanced through inter-agency and regional cooperation; 2) IORIS' credibility, long-term use and sustainability are ensured.