Libya is a failed state that poses serious security risks to Malta, Italy, Greece and the rest of the EU. Despite frequent debates at European level, nothing much seems to change. The peaceful resolution of the civil conflicts in Libya seems nowhere near being achieved. Libya remains the EU’s Gordian Knot, a complex and unsolvable problem.
The news that Air Malta has resumed flights to Libya for the first time in seven years may look like a spiral of hope for our distressed neighbours. Air Malta chairman David Curmi sounded politically optimistic but probably commercially naïve when he argued that “flight services between the two countries will increase cooperation on several aspects including economic, social and cultural”.
The reality on the ground is much more depressing. Malta, like Italy and Greece, is disproportionately affected by asylum seekers arriving from North Africa. The current arrangements for redistributing migrants throughout the EU have proven ineffective. There is no desire among many EU member states to strike a fair agreement on migrant redistribution.
In the last European Council meeting, the final communication referred to the strengthening of the EU’s external borders. But, according to the Financial Times, ”EU leaders spent little more than five minutes discussing it”.
Italy remains the only country with enough political clout to attempt to resolve the Libyan Gordian Knot. The priorities should be to focus on political stability in Libya, which would reduce the flow of migrants to the EU’s southern borders, and then to work towards a new EU-wide agreement for fairly redistributing the asylum seekers that do arrive.
None of these objectives are anywhere near being achieved. UN-sponsored Libyan Political Dialogue Forum meetings in Geneva, aimed at defining a political road map that should lead to democratic elections in December, have been described by the international media as being “out of control, with bitter and ill-tempered exchanges marred by allegations of bribery”.
Malta’s inability to bring about any meaningful change in the Libyan saga was amply demonstrated in a recent incident. Rescue workers from the German NGO Sea-Watch recorded Libyan coastguard patrol vessels in Malta’s search and rescue zone trying to ram a small wooden boat and firing shots in an attempt to force people on board back to Libya. According to the German NGO, the Maltese authorities said they were “investigating”.
The EU’s inability and unwillingness to find a more effective solution to the Libya problem are depressing, even if not surprising, as, once again, national interests prevail over Union interests.
‘Turkey Style’ agreements, whereby the EU gives cash to a country to control migratory flows, are proving to be ineffective. Pushing migrants who originate from sub-Saharan Africa back into Libya may seem like a temporary solution but it only hides the real problem from sight. The humanitarian abuses that are going, both on land and at sea, shame the EU’s commitment to the value of respect for all human lives.
Admittedly, Malta has severe bargaining limitations on how much it can really do to resolve the Libyan conflict. But the government needs to support the Italian government fully to ensure that the migration problem is not continuously swept under the European Commission’s metaphorical carpet.
Anti-EU sentiment in Italy, Malta and other member states will continue to grow unless the EU comes up with effective and humane solutions to the flow of migrants towards its borders, particularly around the Mediterranean.