Rear Admiral Fabio Agostini, Commander of Operation EUNAVFOR Med Irini, said on Thursday 26 November that the operation could extend its activities to monitoring the ceasefire in Libya.
“If requested by the competent authorities and decided by (EU) Member States, Irini could have a role in monitoring the ceasefire in Libya”, he told the press.
While the mission is currently benefiting from three ships (Greece, Italy and Germany), two full-time patrol aircraft (Luxembourg and Poland), two others on a more occasional basis (France and Greece), a UAV (Italy) and benefits from satellite images from the European centre, the Rear Admiral explained that the more resources the mission had, the better it could achieve its objectives. “The more resources we have, the more efficient, balanced and impartial we are”, he added.
So far, in six months of activity, Irini has investigated 1,400 vessels, made 58 friendly approaches and five inspections, one of which led to the diversion of the vessel (see EUROPE 12559/5). The operation also monitored 130 suspicious flights, 16 ports and 25 airports. “We sent 17 special reports to the UN panel of experts”, Mr Agostini added. These reports were produced whenever the mission had evidence of a violation of the arms or oil embargo.
Asked by EUROPE about the resumption of coastguard training, which is a secondary task of the operation, Rear Admiral Agostini hoped that it could be resumed quickly.
Sophia, the mission that preceded Irini, conducted coastguard training and trained 500, but that training has not yet resumed because of “political constraints”, Mr Agostini said. “There was immediate political bias from non-Member States, but also from the Libyan government to a certain extent, and that is why it was not possible to start training the coastguard and the navy”, he explained.
Mr Agostini said that he had met for the first time with the Libyan government last week and that both sides had made progress on this issue. However, “there is still a long way to go”, he acknowledged.
According to the Rear Admiral, this issue should not be dealt with by Irini alone, but by all of Europe, explaining that one of the requests of the Libyan coastguard and navy was for the provision of more resources and equipment. Mr Agostini felt that the resolution of certain technical issues relating to equipment and resources would enable progress to be made towards the resumption of training. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)