CENTRO DE ESTUDOS ESTRATÉGICOS DO ATLÂNTICO

Nowadays Portugal has the 4th largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the European Union, with a size of 1.7 million km2, which corresponds to about 18 times the land area. It is therefore a huge area, even when compared with most countries in the world. However, Portugal calls for an extension of its continental shelf, resulting in an increase of about 2.1 million km2, thus totaling 3.8 million km2. Since 2006, the team of the Task Force for the Extension of Continental Shelf (EMEPC), with the support of the Portuguese Navy and several other organizations, has worked to collect the technical and scientific data that the United Nations (UN) require to consider that Portugal’s sovereign soil extends beyond 200 nautical miles (370 km).
 
Therefore, Portugal has all the ingredients to become one of the largest oceanic countries of the world, with geopolitical and economic implications of extraordinary importance. For that reason, the country needs new strategies to achieve its national objectives of security and prosperity and it is in the sea that Portugal will find the resources it had to look for abroad, first in the East, then in Brazil and later in Africa. 

However, there is no clear vision or a detailed study about the international environment that evolves and constrains Portugal’s capacity to claim and exploit the resources present in either the continental shelf or in the EEZ. Obtaining this knowledge is all the more urgent when the evolution of the international state of affairs, with regard to the ongoing advancement of the great powers in obtaining control of marine resources, appears to threaten Portugal’s ability to explore these resources as a sovereign nation. 

The aim of this project was to develop a valuable contribution to fill this lack of knowledge about the state of affairs under which Portugal will have to defend its interests. Thus, our purpose was to conduct a detailed study of the situation that involves: 
 

1. Portugal’s proposal to extend its continental shelf; 

2. the economic and strategic potential inherent to this extension; 

3. the Portuguese ability to exploit this potential; 

4. the developments in this field in the reference countries; 

5. the assessment of opportunities and potential for cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries in maritime affairs; 

6. the study of political decision-making in Portugal with regard to maritime affairs;

7. the creation of a maritime open sources intelligence Centre.

 
Therefore we sought to obtain a systematic body of knowledge that enables us to know the situation and outline its development.This body of knowledge will prove extremely useful because it could support the scientific basis for political decision-making in terms of defining the Portuguese strategy to explore and exploit the potential of its maritime territory. It was in this context that we have created the Centre for Strategic Studies of the Atlantic.