On Wednesday, the Libyan Prime Minister-designate, Fathi Bashagha denounced the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s plan to visit Libya on Saturday for talks with the rival Tripoli-based government, headed by Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba.
In a statement, Bashagha said that he was “surprised” by Meloni’s planned visit to Tripoli, and meeting with “a government whose mandate has expired and which therefore no longer has any legitimacy.”
The PM spoke of a “mysterious” agreement in the oil sector between Italy’s ENI and the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC). He warned that “the Libyan State will not accept any agreement with suspicious purpose and result”, threatening to “resort to the judiciary”
He added that the deal “requires increasing the share of the foreign partner, and reducing the share of the national partner.”
After her trip to Algeria, Giorgia Meloni is preparing to fly to Libya. She is to be accompanied by her Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, and Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi. There are two main dossiers on the table: energy and migrants.
Saturday’s visit comes at the conclusion of a set of trips to North Africa, within the scope of that Pact for the Mediterranean. In order to involve the countries most directly interested in the stabilization of Libya, contain the migratory flows, and also guarantee greater gas supplies to Italy and Europe, as an alternative to those from Russia.
It is no coincidence that an agreement worth eight billion dollars could be signed between Eni and the NOC on Saturday in Tripoli.
Libya’s current political stalemate grew from the failure to hold elections in December 2021 and Prime Minister Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba’s refusal to step down. In response, the country’s eastern-based Parliament appointed Fathi Bashagha, who has sought to install his government in Tripoli for months.
The protracted stand-off between the two governments led to bouts of clashes in Tripoli last year, risking the return of civil war to the oil-rich nation after months of relative calm.
The North African nation has plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime leader Muammer Gaddafi in 2011. Libya has been virtually ruled by a set of rival militias and armed groups in the east and west.