The European Union is strengthening its collaboration with Libya in order to control migration flows in the Mediterranean. According to a note from the Council of the EU dated 20 May and made public by our fellow journalists at Statewatch on Thursday, 28 May, a draft revised technical arrangement is envisaged between European security operation ‘EUNAVFOR MED IRINI’ and “the Libyan institutions responsible for law enforcement and search and rescue at sea”.
Operation ‘IRINI’ had initially been launched in 2020 to enforce the arms embargo that the UN Security Council imposed on Libya while also combating petroleum trafficking. Alongside these maritime missions, the operation includes a capacity-building component for Libyan forces: this pillar is the focus of the draft, which is centred around managing migration flows securely and dismantling smuggling networks.
Whereas training for the Libyan Coast Guard and Navy had, up to this point, mainly taken place on the high seas or in European centres, the EU is now considering deploying “Mobile Training Teams” directly “in Libyan territory, including territorial waters”.
Moreover, the plan envisages refurbishing and equipping Libyan Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres (MRCC) as well as their communication infrastructures. The stated goal is to optimise coastal surveillance in order to effect “the detection and interdiction of illegal activities” and to “prevent migrant smuggling”.
In order to prevent abuse, the EU would make the selection of candidates conditional on having no ties to crime and would impose a “monitoring mechanism” aimed at evaluating the behaviour of the trained personnel as well as the Libyan units’ operations at sea a posteriori.
Nonetheless, the document makes it clear that this is a “non-legally binding technical arrangement” and specifically emphasises that the monitoring by Operation ‘IRINI’ will never entail “forms of aid or assistance to the operations carried out by the Liby[an law] enforcement [authorities]” or “any responsibility for decision-making regarding [their] activities”.
In the context of migration policy, this legal certainty would mean that, even if the EU were to support the modernisation of Libyan structures in order to increase the effectiveness of their maritime interceptions, the EU would not accept any legal or operational responsibility for whatever happens to the individuals brought back onto Libyan soil by those same—now empowered—forces.
Read the note: https://aeur.eu/f/m3v (Original version in French by Justine Manaud)