Catherine Ashton, Head of the EU's External Action Service, is ready with a European strategic response to the piracy threat in the Gulf of Guinea and along the coast of West Africa, a region that constitutes a rising threat against the European and international shipping industry.

And there is little doubt that the problem off West Africa is serious. As the international community has successfully reduced the number of pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden, the number has simply increased off the continent's other coast, with Nigerian pirates being particularly active.