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Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, accompanied by Undersecretary Manlio Di Stefano, will be in Libya today. Following the increase in allocations from international military missions and direct support to the Libyan Coast Guard – and indirectly to the country’s detention centers – the declared objective of the visit, several newspapers write, will be to consolidate economic, industrial and economic relations. Libyan trade. with Italy. Two issues will be addressed, in particular: the credits claimed by Italian companies in Libya and the projects that were announced in the agreement signed in 2008 between the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and the then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, including the airport. International capital and the so-called “highway of peace”: works never finished due to the end of the Gaddafi regime.
Luigi Di Maio will be in Tripoli and then in Tobruk. You will see Prime Minister Fayez al Serraj, whose government is the only one considered legitimate by the UN, and then Aguila Saleh, president of the rival parliament in the east of the country. At the end of August al Serraj and Saleh had announced, thanks to the mediation of Russia and Turkey, the end of hostilities and the reactivation of oil production that has stopped since mid-January, with the consequent marginalization of Marshal Khalifa Haftar , which controls the east of the country.
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This new situation of relative stability, the newspapers always write, could be an economic opportunity for Italy. In 2019, Libya, after Algeria, was Italy’s second most important trading partner on the African continent; Italy is the fifth supplier and the second client of Libya worldwide. In the first two months of 2020, the Corriere della Sera, “Our exports increased 32% compared to the same period of 2019.” And then there is Eni, who in collaboration with the Libyan Noc supplies energy to the local market.
A little history
In 1911, after a brief war against the Ottoman Empire, Italy took control of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, which in 1934 were united and called Libya. During those years, tens of thousands of Italians moved to Libya, opening factories and businesses. Italy lost its dominion over Libya in 1943, officially renouncing it in 1947: Libya was provisionally administered by the United Kingdom and France, gained independence in 1951, and became a monarchy, ruled by King Idris.
In 1969, a military coup led by Muammar Gaddafi took control of the country. Among the first things it did, the regime nationalized Italian possessions in Libya, confiscated all the assets of 35,000 Italian-Libyan citizens, and finally expelled them. Over the years, the Gaddafi regime made numerous requests and threats to Italy: monetary compensation for the damage caused by colonization, the construction of hospitals and infrastructure, the demining of some areas where wars were fought.
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Italy never completely rejected Gaddafi’s requests, partly because of the threat posed by the dictator with his support for international terrorism, partly because of the importance of Eni’s oil extraction operations in Libya. somewhat, starting in the 1980s, due to the possible influence of the Libyan government in hindering migratory flows from North Africa to Italy.
The first draft of the agreement between Italy and Libya was signed in 1998, during the first Prodi government. The agreement included a series of commitments for the Italian government and the implementation of some projects in Libya by a joint venture. The agreement, however, was not ratified and it was concluded that a “grand gesture” was needed to appease the Libyan demands: a symbolic act that would prevent further threats and close the matter once and for all. Thus, we come to the Treaty of Benghazi, signed by Italy and Libya in 2008 during the last Berlusconi government.
The Treaty of Benghazi
The treaty is divided into three parts. The first establishes some general principles in relations between Italy and Libya, including the will to act “in accordance with the respective laws, objectives and principles of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
In the second part, after the establishment of a mixed commission made up of members appointed by the respective states, Italy undertook to pay Libya five billion dollars in twenty years, that is, 250 million dollars annually, to carry out projects and infrastructures . Libya, in turn, promised to guarantee Italian companies the construction of other infrastructure.
Then there were some special initiatives: the construction of two hundred houses in Libya, at the expense of Italy; the allocation of university scholarships for one hundred Libyan students, paid for by Italy; a treatment program, in specialized Italian institutes, for some victims of a mine explosion in Libya; the restoration of pension payments to Libyan holders and their heirs; the return to Libya of some archaeological finds transferred to Italy during colonialism. In addition, the parties undertook – without specifying how – to solve the problem of credits claimed by Italian companies from Libyan administrations and entities, which dates back to the expropriations carried out by Gaddafi in 1970 and above all to the Libyan insolvency against Italian companies between the 80s and 2000s.
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The third and last part of the treaty was full of declarations of intent, such as the strengthening of historical ties, commitments for reciprocal visits, cooperation in the cultural, scientific, energy, economic and industrial fields. It also included collaboration in the field of fighting terrorism and immigration.
The Treaty was ratified by Italy on February 6, 2009. After that, activities were suspended: in 2011 a civil war broke out in Libya that overthrew the Gaddafi regime. When the war ended, the country was faced with hundreds of armed and rival militias, without real parties or unions, without a government capable of controlling the entire territory, and in the disinterest of a large part of the international community to favor a transition process towards democracy. Everything that contributed to the chaos of recent years, to the so-called “second Libyan civil war” that started in 2014 and, despite the ceasefire agreement, has yet to be resolved.
The “common economic interests”
Among the main projects desired by the second part of the Benghazi Treaty, and aimed at the compensation of Libya, are the so-called “coastal highway of peace” (or friendship) and the international airport of Tripoli.
The highway must cross Libya connecting the border with Tunisia with that of Egypt. It should be more than 1,700 kilometers long, hundreds of bridges, thousands of tunnels and four lanes, for a total value of more than 3 billion euros. In 2013, the official delivery of the award of the first lot (440 kilometers) to Salini-Impregilo, a company that is now called Webuild, was announced, for a value of 963 million euros. Subsequently, the bids for four macro lots were launched. As for the Tripoli airport, the Aeneas consortium had been awarded the construction of two terminals (one for international flights, another for domestic flights), a parking lot and the access road for 78 million.
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The Italo-Libyan Joint Commission that Di Maio would like to reconstitute (according to what the newspapers write, but no official communication has yet been delivered) should deal with the resumption of these two major projects. It must also address the issue of credits claimed by Italian companies for works started and never finished due to the war. In fact, the interruption of the works or its non-start-up has caused damage to many Italian companies that, in Libya, operate mainly in the oil and gas, construction, transport, telecommunications, feed, industrial mechanics or plant sectors. engineering. Not only that: some companies have loans of around 200 million euros since the 1990s that, due to the fall of Gaddafi, are difficult to recover.
Regarding the two main works, highway and airport, the Ministry of Infrastructure drafts the Messenger Service, “It is reviewing the accounts” and the Ministry of Economy and Finance is working “on the appropriations in the budget.” In all this, however, the internal situation in Libya must be taken into account. Two days ago the Interior Minister of the Tripoli government, Fathi Bashagha, was suspended from his post because he would have caused part of the protests in recent days to destabilize the Serraj government. This could re-legitimize Haftar, interrupting the phase of relative stability that began in late August, and the resumption of economic relations with Italy.
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