Ten days ago, Prime Minister Robert Abela held high-level meetings about the threat of mass migration from Libya. First with Fayez Mustafa al-Sarraj, the head of the UN-recognised so-called Government of National Accord in Tripoli; and, second, with Josep Borrell, the grandly-named EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in the European Commission.
With al-Sarraj, the prime minister announced the inauguration of an immigration coordination centre to achieve better border protection and reduce human smuggling, criminal activity and loss of lives at sea.
Borrell spoke in platitudes, offering nothing. He acknowledged that “as the most densely populated country in Europe” Malta needed help to manage the influx from Africa. “The Commission,” he said, “was working on an automatic relocation mechanism”. Despite speaking as the EU’s foreign minister, he did not mention the ongoing civil war in Libya (now at a turning point) which has drawn in other major powers.
The leaders of Malta and Libya, and the EU foreign minister, appear to be operating in a parallel universe, divorced from the geopolitical realities in the divided state of Libya. The hard evidence is that Malta may well find itself backing the wrong horse in al-Sarraj. And the EU will continue to ignore the consequences of the direct involvement of Russia and Turkey in Libya at its peril. These are uncomfortable truths, but Malta and the EU appeared to shy away from them.
Since the murder of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi nine years ago it has become clear that Libya is neither a nation nor a state. For the most part it is lawless terrain, its politics defined by the shifting loyalties of tribal leaders and heads of crime syndicates.
Britain and France seeded the crisis by launching air raids in 2011, supposedly designed to stop Gaddafi slaughtering his opponents in Benghazi. The intention was a noble one: to head off a massacre and to demonstrate that the West was not a passive spectator as the Arab Spring turned nasty. The Franco-British plan was half-baked, with no thought given to what would happen after the fall of Gaddafi.
The consequent Libyan civil war is drawing in mercenaries from Syria and Russia. Migrants from sub-Saharan states are queuing up in Libya for an illegal passage across the Mediterranean. Local militia commanders sit on stockpiles of guns. Makeshift training camps teach a new generation how to create rudimentary explosives.
Libya is torn between government forces backed by Turkey, and the army of maverick strongman, Khalifa Haftar, backed by Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
Libya is a test case, above all, for European statecraft.
The migration flows from the Libyan coasts towards Malta, Italy and Greece are a European problem. So is the export of illegal guns and the long-term radicalisation of a young North African population providing recruitment potential for a recovering Isis.
But so far – and judging by Borrell’s inconsequential visit – there is no discernible European plan of action. The aim, Borrell would say, is to arrange an enduring ceasefire as a precursor to a genuinely inclusive and legitimate central government. But that has already been tried and it has failed. The European Union has become marginal in brokering peace in this, most volatile of neighbours – to Malta’s frustration and peril.
The European Union has become marginal in brokering peace in this, most volatile of neighbours – to Malta’s frustration and peril- Martin Scicluna
Instead, foreign leverage on the Libyan warring players has come from Erdogan of Turkey on the one side and Putin, aligned with al-Sisi of Egypt, on the other. They are all self-identifying strongmen seeking to exploit a power vacuum in Libya. A carve-up is under way. The Turkish leader has used sophisticated drones to seize command of the air from Haftar’s forces.
The Egyptian president has warned that there will be a military response to the Turks if they push Haftar further back. US intelligence has reported the arrival of a dozen Russian fighter jets. This tells us the Russian position recognises the government of national unity in Tripoli while simultaneously providing military muscle to Haftar’s troops.
Recently, Russia ordered mercenaries into Libya for a key battle over the oilfields against the resurgent Turkish-backed forces. Russia is playing all sides in the hope that it can win, one way or another, an oil-producing client state with a strategically sensitive coastline. The military build-up on either side is now focussed on what could be the decisive battle of the civil war.
The EU has become an ineffectual onlooker to the real power brokers in Libya. Yet the consequences of mass migration, which the Russian-Egyptian-Turkish confrontation could unleash, will be felt directly by southern Europe – with Malta in the front line.
In Europe, Italy now turns boats back. Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and others have opted out of a binding relocation policy. Austria, Germany and others are fearful of far-right populism.
Abela is right to seek to build a relationship with al-Sarraj. But sadly, their talks are effectively meaningless as long as it is unclear who rules Libya.
He should instead focus the country’s diplomatic offensive in Europe to build a network of like-minded leaders to confront the inequity of the current situation, with Malta standing alone facing the social, economic, demographic, cultural and security impacts of Libya’s instability.
While it is rarely wise to use the nuclear option until all others are exhausted, the time may be coming to consider the country’s veto to reach a fair and binding EU burden-sharing resolution on illegal migration from Libya.