Italy is the European country that has the greatest interest in the successful transition to democracy and stability in which Libya finds itself, shaken by a decade of chaos and civil war after the fall of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi. In a new gesture of support, the head of the Italian Executive, Mario Draghi, received this Monday in Rome the Prime Minister of the Libyan Government of National Unity, Abdelhamid Dbeibah, to whom he again offered his collaboration in the “complex transition” in politics. Find the North African country.
Dbeibah has been in office since mid-March and hopes to run for the next elections, scheduled for the end of December and before which it will be necessary to approve an electoral law, some Budgets and, the most difficult thing still, maintain peace between the various armed factions and win the support of General Khalifa Haftar, a strong man from the eastern part of the country.
Unlike what happened when he visited him in Tripoli last month and showed his “satisfaction” with the way Libya handles immigration to Italy, which earned him criticism from NGOs, this time Draghi was somewhat more demanding . He recalled the “moral duty” that the Libyan authorities have to “ensure full respect for the rights of refugees and migrants.” In this way he tried to combine the two interests of the Italian immigration policy, which according to government sources is based on the effectiveness of defending one’s own borders while taking into account the humanitarian situation of the displaced.
Draghi announced that immigration management will be one of the hot topics of the next European Council, which will be held on June 24 and 25. “Italy intends to continue financing voluntary returns and humanitarian evacuations from Libya,” stressed the Italian prime minister, insisting that his country will continue helping the North African nation with “resources” and “training capacity” to manage migratory flows. However, it is necessary for the European Union to offer a “faster and more determined” response. Dbeibah, for his part, recalled that this issue “is not solved only in the Mediterranean area” and asked not to forget the situation in the migrants’ countries of origin.
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