Why not let Liberia, Malta, Bahamas, and wherever else those ships are flagged with deal with it? It is the duty of the countries under which the ships are registered to take care of the protection in international waters. How many ships running in the Persian Golf/Red Sea/Horn of Africa region are actually registered to a (non-Malta) EU state or the USA?

Tell them that if you want cheap, you get cheap.

World War 3: Middle East proxy war

This is the best summary I could come up with:

In a document dated January 10 and seen by Euronews, the EU’s diplomatic service proposes sending "at least three" warships with "multi mission capabilities" to the region as early as next month.

The document recommends the "fast-tracking implementation" of an operation mandated to act "from the Red Sea to the Gulf," in order to protect maritime security in a region plagued by instability in recent weeks.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, a raft of drone and rocket attacks in the Red Sea by the Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that controls a part of Yemen, has threatened to severely disrupt trade flows into Europe.

Tensions escalated at the turn of the new year when ten Houthi militants attempting to sabotage a Danish-operated ship were killed by Prosperity Guardian officers, prompting Iran to send in its own frigate on January 1.

But the request was shut down by Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez, who said the country was "willing" to consider a bespoke European mission to patrol the area and protect Europe's commercial interests.

American and British forces, with backing from the Netherlands, stepped up their response to the attacks overnight with the first air and missile strikes in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

The original article contains 514 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 61%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!