The Chairman of the EU Military Committee, General Claudio Graziano, requested, on Monday 7 September, that Operation EUNAVFOR MED IRINI be provided with the necessary means to carry out its mission to enforce the arms embargo on Libya.
“The operation must be provided with the necessary assets and personnel to carry out its tasks properly”, he stressed at a hearing before the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Security and Defence.
The general called on the Europeans to be credible, saying the mission was “very under-equipped and unable” to achieve its objectives because it did not have enough resources. “If we are not able to enforce the embargo, we will not make progress” towards a solution in Libya, he warned.
A second Force Generation Conference will be held in mid-September in Brussels, with the aim of obtaining more assets and personnel for the operation from Member States. The mission currently has only two ships and five aircraft.
By coincidence, on the same day, the flagship of the operation, ITS San Giorgio, was replaced by ITS Margottini, after 38 days of activity in the operation zone. The Italian ship will be the headquarters of the Force Commander, Admiral Ettore Socci, and his staff until mid-October. From 19 October, Greece will take command at sea while Italian Admiral Fabio Agostini will continue to lead the operation from the headquarters in Rome.
More than 600 hailings in four months
Despite the limited means available to the operation, since the launch of its operation at sea on 4 May, IRINI has already carried out more than 600 hailings and 12 friendly approaches, i.e. visits on board merchant ships, according to a press release.
The operation monitored suspicious vessels in more than 10 ports and anchorage points, but also detected, by monitoring 25 airports and airstrips, more than 80 military flights or possible military related cargo ships travelling to and from Libya.
The EU satellite centre, SatCen, provided 200 groups of satellite images at IRINI's request.
In total, the operation submitted 14 special reports to the United Nations Panel of Experts on both sides of the conflict in Libya.
Asked about an intervention on land for Operation IRINI, General Graziano said that the EU would not deploy troops without a UN mandate and that this mandate was currently limited to the high seas. However, according to the general, if the UN changed the EU's mandate and allowed deployment on the ground and if security conditions were assured, “technically” the EU would be able to deploy forces, although he said he did not know what type of operation was being talked about - embargo monitoring or ceasefire compliance. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)