Libya: Mario Draghi’s tough line on Turkey undercut by rumours of a second ‘sultan’s ransom’

Libya: Mario Draghi’s tough line on Turkey undercut by rumours of a second ‘sultan’s ransom’

In a glowing assessment of Mario Draghi recently published by the Financial Times, Italy’s new prime minister comes across as nothing less than a ‘game-changer’ for European harmony and relations between the European Union’s three largest economies. In a matter of mere weeks, Draghi has upended perceptions of the Italian government in the other European capitals, where Rome was once perceived as a problem child but is now seen as a ‘model European.’

Even so, the FT’s hagiography of Draghi concludes on a more sombre note, with Nathalie Tocci of Rome’s Institute for International Affairs warning “we will not do him any favours by painting him as infallible... he is capable of making mistakes.” If recent leaks from Reuters are to be believed, Italy’s political saviour may have come very close to making a major one in Libya, where his government was reportedly planning to propose the EU replicate its controversial 2016 refugee payment deal with Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. Though Draghi’s administration denied plotting a payment deal with Tripoli, the Italian PM brought up the issue of migration at a recent meeting with Libya’s transitional government and has vowed to put it on the agenda at June’s European Council.

Given Erdogan’s enduring sway over events in Tripoli and across western Libya, Draghi’s alleged proposal to pay out yet another ‘sultan’s ransom’ would hand the Turkish strongman yet another cudgel with which to threaten the European Union.

Rome: the missing piece for European unity in the Eastern Mediterranean?

On paper, Draghi has taken an unquestionably tough line on Erdogan and his provocations targeting the EU and European leaders. Until late last year, Italy maintained an ambiguous position towards Erdogan, with Rome carefully managing its relationship with Ankara on account of the two Mediterranean powers’ closely intertwined political and energy interests in Libya.

That began to change near the end former Italian PM Giuseppe Conte’s tenure, with Conte rallying to the defence of French president Emmanuel Macron in the face of personal attacks from Erdogan last October. Draghi, by contrast, has quickly become one of Erdogan’s most prominent critics in Europe, openly calling him a ‘dictator’ in response to his poor treatment of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President Charles Michel during a diplomatic visit in April, a kerfuffle which has since been dubbed ‘SofaGate’ in Brussels.

Moving beyond rhetoric, Italy has also gradually shifted towards the position of its European counterparts in the Eastern Mediterranean crisis, to the extent that Italian vessels in the region are now getting caught up in their own skirmishes with Turkish counterparts. Libya, however, remains a delicate subject for Rome, which has courted successive governments in Tripoli dating back to the heyday of Muammar Gaddafi’s reign.

Italy’s Libya policy largely overlaps with the interests of its national energy company, Eni, one of the pre-eminent international players in Libya’s fast-recovering hydrocarbon sector. Italy and Turkey long enjoyed a mutual marriage of convenience with the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), which Italy helped put into place and continued to support despite its Islamist leanings and failure to maintain unified control over the country.

It was not until Ankara’s direct military involvement to save its ideological allies in Tripoli that Italy finally adopted a more neutral position in Libya, maintaining links both with the GNA and with Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the dominant force in eastern Libya and a key player who enjoys support from regional powers such as Egypt and the UAE and EU members like France and Greece.

Unlike the rival GNA, which proved unable to maintain itself without Turkish support, Haftar has demonstrated a rare ability to pull together the fractious political factions and militias of eastern Libya. Had it not been for the Turkish military intervention that saved the GNA’s hold over Tripoli, the field marshal’s forces appeared posed to end Libya’s de facto partition and establish unified control over the country two years ago.

Erdogan’s decision to intervene directly thus presented Italy with a scenario where it might have found itself aligned with Turkey and against all of its other major partners in the region – not only in Libya, but also in the Eastern Mediterranean. This made a realignment on Rome’s part a foreign policy imperative.

A new unity government and fresh hopes for stability

Fortunately for Mario Draghi, most of this awkward diplomatic repositioning fell to Conte. Draghi, instead, has taken up the Libya dossier just as the country’s rival power centres have agreed to form a new national unity government led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibeh, who was once closely affiliated with Muammar Gaddafi but who is now tasked with laying the groundwork for elections to be held this December.

That political reset, however, has not entirely rewritten the facts on the ground inside Libya, with Turkey refusing to withdraw tens of thousands of foreign fighters it originally deployed to Libya in support of the GNA – even after the new unity government’s foreign minister, Najla al-Manqoush, specifically asked Ankara to comply with UN Security Council resolutions and do so. Turkey’s top diplomat, Mevlut Cavusoglu, has defended that decision by pointing to the military cooperation agreement his country signed with the GNA in 2019, even though the Tripoli-based government no longer exists.

Ankara’s insistence on maintaining its military presence in Libya indicates Erdogan’s ‘neo-Ottoman’ policies in the country are far from over. According to some observers, it also speaks to a lack of confidence on the part of Ankara and its local allies that their coalition will be electorally viable in December. As Aya Burwila of the Athens-based Research Institute for European and American Studies told the Turkish news outlet Ahval: “The Turks do not want elections in Libya, because they know that the Islamists do not have a future in Libya”.

Europe’s best hope for long-term stability in Libya lies in the democratic election of a strong, stable government capable of re-establishing control over the country’s territory and its porous borders, a challen zge that will necessitate the close involvement of Field Marshal Haftar and his forces to have any chance of success.

Turkey does not share those interests. Instead, its potential spoiler role in the hard-won Libyan peace process makes a unified European approach all the more important. Given the way Ankara has repeatedly weaponised its refugee agreement with the EU, Draghi’s reported plan to replicate the arrangement in a country under partial Turkish military occupation would instead strengthen Erdogan’s hand still further.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the management of EconoTimes