„Are you crazy?” -The first reaction of Romano Prodi, former Prime Minister and long-time international politician, to the news of logistical support for the French and British military operations in Libya, was of sincere dismay.
It was 2011 and, in the wake of the Arab Spring, the Gaddafi regime was wavering in the wake of protests and a revolt that shocked what in Italy was called, not coincidentally, the “Fourth Shore” of the Mediterranean.
Because Libya has always been an ally of Italy.
They weren’t always idyllic relationships, of course. Former province of the Ottoman Empire, it became one of the first Italian colonies, after the partial conquest in 1911, and the subsequent enlargement with the concession by France and Britain of Cyrenaica. With the defeat of World War II and the loss of its colonies, Libya was administered by Britain and France.
Italy continued to cultivate a privileged relationship with Tripoli, until in 1951 the country became independent under the name of the United Kingdom of Libya.
But it had not always been an idyll, and ancient rust sometimes emerged in international relations. Besides, Italy, beyond the stereotype of “good Italians”, had been extremely harsh in the repression of the rebellions that had crossed the country especially in the years 20 and 30, until the hanging of the leader of the rebels Senussi, Omar al Mukhtar.
So, while Italy had left a good memory and a long history of cooperation in Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan, the climate was completely different. And even the king, Omar Senussi, was certainly not in favor of Rome.
However, thanks to Enrico Mattei’s far-sighted policy, very favorable agreements were concluded in the energy field. What was called a “sand box” at the time of colonization had turned into an Eldorado of oil and gas.
Mattei, managing director of ENI (the Ente Nazionale Hydrocarbons) the Italian oil company, had succeeded, thanks to the agreements with the Libyan government, to emancipate Italy from the energy dependence towards the so-called “Seven Sisters”. But he would pay dearly for his choice, dying in a mysterious plane crash a few years later. Suspicions about the principals – CIA or M-I6 – have never been completely removed.
But the arrangements were in place. And Italy was able to maintain good relations with Libya, even if tensions with the Senussi had never been completely resolved.
It was in 1969 that the young Colonel Muhammar Gaddafi, a Nassirian, came to power and ousted the king.
Even here, the suspicions of an Italian “hand” were never dissolved, especially because what would become the undisputed leader of Libya had been trained in Italy, between 1964 and 1967, in the war school in Civitavecchia and then in Bracciano, near Rome.
And on the other hand it seems that in Senussi he was “flirting” with the old allies, France and Britain, for other concessions and marginalize Italy.
What is certain is that Gaddafi fueled a rhetoric of independence and opposition with Italy, with sensational actions such as the firing of missiles towards the Italian island of Lampedusa, and the sending of MIG to the Italian sky, likely cause of the mistaken downing of an ITAVIA airliner at Ustica, in 1980.
However, it is also true that in fact he proved to be a loyal ally, becoming a shareholder of Fiat during the period in which the most important Italian car industry was in a deep crisis. It was 1976.
Italy returned the favor, preventing Reagan from carrying out an attack to kill Gaddafi himself. It seems that it was the head of the Italian government at the time, Bettino Craxi, to personally warn the colonel.
Italian oil concessions, all concentrated in the rich Gulf of Sirte, were certainly the best compared to those rich, but difficult to manage, of Fezzan.
Before its collapse, Libya was Italy’s main energy supplier.
And the cordial bond that united the two countries was established by Gaddafi’s trip to Europe, in 2009, with first stop in Italy, received with all honors by Silvio Berlusconi at Ciampino airport. An international rehabilitation trip, with Hillary Clinton shaking his hand, claiming that that was a demonstration that “there are no eternal enemies of the United States.”
All right, then.
No. Because the Arab Spring started in 2011, Obama gave the famous Cairo speech and the West was invaded by a dream that would soon turn into a nightmare. France and Britain espoused the cause of the protests in Libya and managed to drag the US (which however remained secluded behind only logistical support) and, precisely, incomprehensibly, Italy.
Only historians will be able to answer this question: why did Rome decide to side with those who, always, were its most bitter enemies in that territory: Britain, and especially France, who always tried to control the rich oil fields that had been a quasi-exclusive Italian.
It is no coincidence that the current chaos between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in Libya has seen Paris side by side with the rebels led by Khalifa Haftar, and only the entry of Turkey alongside Tripoli has prevented the country from falling into the hands of the rioters.
Revolts that had the support not only of France, but also of Russia and Qatar, not exactly allies of the West.
Italy, however, has maintained its relations with Libya, at least internationally recognized, and which can be identified with Tripolitania, and has repeatedly attempted a dialog with Haftar’s Cyrenaica too. At the base of Rome’s interest, the management of the flow of migrants that just from the “Fourth Shore” poured onto the Italian coasts thanks to the proximity to Sicily and the island of Lampedusa. Gaddafi had previously acted as a ‘barrier’ to the exodus from the Sahel and other countries along the southern path, but the situation had become dramatic with the collapse of the country and the criminal management of the migrant routes.
It is certainly 2011 – not by chance that of the Libyan uprising – the turning point in migration and, from contained figures – about 4,400 landings in 2010 – it rises to almost 63 thousand. 2013 is the year of the Lampedusa tragedy, where 368 people died, but it is 2014 that the “monster” figure of 170,100 is reached.
It was for these reasons that, albeit with an objectively complex situation on the ground and far removed from the stabilization that Rome, with the center-left Gentiloni government, on 2 February 2017, signed the ‘Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of development, combating illegal immigration, trafficking in human beings, smuggling, and on strengthening the borders between the State of Libya and the Italian State’.
In short, Italy delegated to Tripoli the task of sealing the borders and preventing migrants from leaving its shores. The Libyan Coast Guard, which does not exist in reality, was financed with EUR 13 million per year, but was tasked with blocking the boats.
Meanwhile detention centers denounced by Amnesty International for brutal human rights violations have opened. To date, 82,000 people have been “sent back”, that is to say, in Libya: women, children, men forced into arbitrary detention and an indescribable series of abuse, torture, rape and indiscriminate violence.
The agreement – which is automatically renewed every three years – is still valid, despite calls from all NGOs working on the ground.
Libya has not always complied with the memorandum: on a whim and as a means of pressure it has opened the ropes and allowed the outflow of thousands of migrants, many of whom have lost their lives in the course of frightening crossings.
But this did not prevent Rome from continuing to dialog with Tripoli. Numerous visits of Libyan representatives to Italy are equally numerous, and of a high level, those to Italy. Just remember Mario Draghi, who made his first foreign visit to Tripoli on 6 April 2021 as President of the Council. And so too Giorgia Meloni, also fresh of appointment, who on January 28, 2023 went to Libya.
The diplomatic accounts of the meetings are always at the heart of the friendliness and the ancient bond that unites the two shores of the Mediterranean. In reality, it is a friendship in which Italy no longer has the dominant position, and where the roles are reversed: if before Rome dictated the conditions, now Tripoli has two formidable levers to put pressure: energy and migrants.
Perhaps all this was inevitable, given the sudden and brutal change in international equilibrium, but it is true that Italy lost its influence very quickly on a country that had been at its side for 100 years.
So the answer to Romano Prodi’s initial question is: perhaps we are not crazy. But we’re not too smart either.
Gianluca Ales is a writer and a journalist at Sky TG24 with a special focus on the Middle East and North Africa, foreign affairs and has an extensive experience as a war correspondent
GSPI does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of GSPI, its staff, or its trustees.
