Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE)

Cise logo final mute

The Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE) is an EU initiative which aims to make European and EU/EEA Member States surveillance systems interoperable to give all concerned authorities from different sectors access to additional classified and unclassified information they need to conduct missions at sea.

Member State authorities carry out many different operational surveillance tasks, in various fields such as maritime safety, security and prevention of pollution by ships, fisheries control, marine pollution preparedness and response, marine environment, customs, border control, general law enforcement and defence. By facilitating a rapid and secure access to additional added-value and critical information, CISE will ensure effectiveness and cost-efficiency of maritime surveillance activities.

Watch EMSA video

CISE is an initiative uniquely designed to meet these needs and has the following main characteristics:

  • CISE is a voluntary collaborative process in the EU seeking to further enhance and promote relevant information exchange between authorities involved in maritime surveillance;
  • CISE is promoting a decentralised framework for these exchanges;
  • CISE should bring added value and complementarity to existing maritime data systems, services and sharing processes, while avoiding duplication. It should be seen as part of a more comprehensive information and exchange framework across the EU and its implementation should work towards coherence with this framework;
  • CISE should neither have an impact on the administrative structures of  Member States, nor on the implementation of existing EU legislation.

Enhancing information exchange between maritime surveillance authorities is one of the key strategic objectives of the Union. The development of the maritime CISE was proposed in 2009 and has been refined since then through various interoperability and security research projects and supported by subsequent Commission Communications and Council Conclusions. Since 2014, CISE is one of the actions supporting the implementation of the EU Maritime Security Strategy (EUMSS) as mentioned in the Action Plan.

As from April 2019, EMSA is engaged in the setting up and enabling, in close coordination with the Member States, the Transitional Phase, ensuring a coherent evolution of the CISE network and to achieve an operational CISE. The importance of the current Transitional Phase managed by EMSA was highlighted in the last Council conclusions on maritime security adopted on 22 June 2021. In the conclusions the Council welcomed the progress made in developing CISE and called on the Commission to continue its efforts to set up a fully operational CISE in cooperation with MS and relevant EU agencies.