ЕС выделил Того 5 млн евро на модернизацию флота и борьбу с пиратством в Гвинейском заливе

The Togolese Navy will, thanks to a €5 million ($5.6 million) European Peace Facility (EPF) assistance measure, be better able to protect its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and add capacity to ongoing Gulf of Guinea anti-piracy efforts. The assistance measure, made public by the Council of the European Union (CEU) in late June, follows a first assistance measure in July 2025 to support the Forces Armées Togolaises (FAT) in efforts protect the West African country’s territorial integrity and curb the spread of extremism in the north. The maritime assistance measure brings overall EU support to Togo to €15 million ($17.1 million) and will see surveillance and communication capacities, maintenance and support equipment and intervention assets boost the country’s maritime service. The EPF measure is part of the European bloc’s commitment to maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea, once rated as the most piracy prone waters in the world. The equipment that will be added to the Togolese Navy inventory is, according to the CEU, all non-lethal. The support is part of a broader package combining various tools, including development assistance aimed at preventing and combatting violent extremism and supporting African-led maritime security and anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Guinea to protect ships, coastal populations and livelihoods. This support is complementary to the EU Security and Defence Initiative for the Gulf of Guinea launched in December 2023, contributing to peace and stability in the wider region. The Togolese Navy has a pair of inshore patrol vessels as well as two response boats – small (RB-S) and another two in the response boat – homeland security (RB-HS) class to keep a watchful eye on the Gulf of Guinea along alongside platforms from Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria. Changing regional security dynamics over the past decade have seen Togo’s military pulled in two distinct directions. The first is the persistent threat of maritime piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. For over a decade, Togo and other West African states have sought to strengthen regional cooperation to counter piracy and enhance maritime security. In Togo’s case, however, these efforts have not been matched by meaningful investment in maritime capabilities. As a result, the Togolese Navy remains extremely small, poorly resourced, and limited in its ability to independently monitor and secure the country’s maritime domain. The second, and far more significant, challenge has been the southward movement of Sahelian Islamist insurgents. Since 2021, Togolese security forces have regularly clashed with militant groups such as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) in the country’s northern Savanes Region, where a state of emergency has been in place since 2022. This growing threat has fundamentally reshaped the country’s defence priorities and resource allocation, and has led to significant organisational reform. As such, the Togolese government has taken a series of steps aimed at strengthening the country’s northern defences. A key step was the adoption of a new Military Programming Law in 2020 aimed at driving force modernisation and improving the force’s overall combat effectiveness. The law allocated approximately $1.3 billion in defence spending over a five-year period and enabled the reorganisation of the country’s special forces into a new group more directly aimed at counter-terror and counter-insurgency operations. Other measures include the construction of additional military bases and forward operating posts in the north, enhanced security cooperation with neighbouring states, and a deliberate effort to diversify the country’s foreign defence partnerships. The FAT has a fairly small inventory consisting largely of ageing or obsolete military systems. While increased levels of defence spending over the past five years have led to some improvements, fiscal constraints continue to hamper force modernisation and operational capability. There have, however, been some modest improvements over the past five years. The Army, for example, has seen its operational capability improve following the acquisition of a substantial number of armoured personnel carriers; notable examples include approximately 100 Mamba Mk7s acquired between 2021 and 2024. Similarly, the Air Force’s operational capacity has been improved through the acquisition of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones and a small number of helicopters, significantly improving surveillance and strike capabilities. The force’s ground support capabilities are also set to improve following the ordering of four Embraer A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft in 2026. The European Peace Facility was established in March 2021 for the financing of actions to prevent conflicts, preserve peace and strengthen international security and stability. Much of its funding has gone to supporting Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022 (of the €7 billion disbursed so far, more than €6 billion has gone to Ukraine). In December 2023, the European Union backed a new security and defence initiative to tackle the spill over of insecurity from the Sahel to west African countries. The initiative is seen as part of a wider response pulling together prevention, socio-economic development and humanitarian assistance. Another recent EPF disbursement came in early June, to Egypt, which was allocated €20 million. Other allocations this year have been to Lebanon, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Armenia. In May, Senegal was allocated €15 million while in March Benin was allocated €10 million.