TITLE IIFRAMEWORK

CHAPTER II Situational awareness

Article 9National situational picture

1.

The national coordination centre shall establish and maintain a national situational picture, in order to provide all authorities with responsibilities for the control and, in particular, surveillance of external borders at national level, with effective, accurate and timely information.

2.

The national situational picture shall be composed of information collected from the following sources:

(a)

the national border surveillance system in accordance with national law;

(b)

stationary and mobile sensors operated by national authorities with a responsibility for external border surveillance;

(c)

patrols on border surveillance and other monitoring missions;

(d)

local, regional and other coordination centres;

(e)

other relevant national authorities and systems, including liaison officers, operational centres and contact points;

(f)

the Agency;

(g)

national coordination centres in other Member States;

(h)

authorities of third countries, on the basis of bilateral or multilateral agreements and regional networks as referred to in Article 20;

(i)

ship reporting systems in accordance with their respective legal bases;

(j)

other relevant European and international organisations;

(k)

other sources.

3.

The events layer of the national situational picture shall consist of the following sub-layers:

(a)

a sub-layer on unauthorised border crossings, including information available to the national coordination centre on incidents relating to a risk to the lives of migrants;

(b)

a sub-layer on cross-border crime;

(c)

a sub-layer on crisis situations;

(d)

a sub-layer on other events, which contains information on unidentified and suspect vehicles, vessels and other craft and persons present at, along or in the proximity of, the external borders of the Member State concerned, as well as any other event which may have a significant impact on the control of the external borders.

4.

The national coordination centre shall attribute a single indicative impact level, ranging from ‘low’ and ‘medium’ to ‘high’, to each incident in the events layer of the national situational picture. All incidents shall be shared with the Agency.

5.

The operational layer of the national situational picture shall consist of the following sub-layers:

(a)

a sub-layer on own assets, including military assets assisting a law enforcement mission, and operational areas, which contains information on the position, status and type of own assets and on the authorities involved. With regard to military assets assisting a law enforcement mission, the national coordination centre may decide, at the request of the national authority responsible for such assets, to restrict access to such information on a need-to-know basis;

(b)

a sub-layer on environmental information, which contains or gives access to information on terrain and weather conditions at the external borders of the Member State concerned.

6.

The information on own assets in the operational layer shall be classified as RESTREINT UE/EU RESTRICTED.

7.

The analysis layer of the national situational picture shall consist of the following sub-layers:

(a)

an information sub-layer, which contains key developments and indicators which are relevant for the purposes of this Regulation;

(b)

an analytical sub-layer, which includes analytical reports, risk rating trends, regional monitors and briefing notes which are relevant for the purposes of this Regulation;

(c)

an intelligence sub-layer, which contains analysed information which is relevant for the purposes of this Regulation and, in particular, for the attribution of the impact levels to the external border sections;

(d)

an imagery and geo-data sub-layer, which includes reference imagery, background maps, validation of analysed information and change analysis (Earth observation imagery), as well as change detection, geo-referenced data and external border permeability maps.

8.

The information contained in the analysis layer and on environmental information in the operational layer of the national situational picture may be based on the information provided in the European situational picture and in the common pre-frontier intelligence picture.

9.

The national coordination centres of neighbouring Member States shall share with each other, directly and in near-real-time, the situational picture of neighbouring external border sections relating to:

(a)

incidents and other significant events contained in the events layer;

(b)

tactical risk analysis reports as contained in the analysis layer.

10.

The national coordination centres of neighbouring Member States may share with each other, directly and in near-real-time, the situational picture of neighbouring external border sections relating to the positions, status and type of own assets operating in the neighbouring external border sections as contained in the operational layer.