(EUBAM) Libya

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ReSHAPE Online Papers Series, no. 03/13 – June 2013 General of the Finnish customs service, Antti Hartikainen, was chosen and rapidly deployed in the theatre. The current 24-months mission EUBAM Libya was officially established on 22 May 2013, through a formal decision by the European Council, with the aim of enhancing the security of Libya’s borders in the short term, and a broader IBM strategy in the long term. On that occasion, the High Representative Catherine Ashton stressed that "EUBAM Libya is an important mission for Libya and the entire region, but also for the security of EU borders", concept perfectly in line with the problematic and complex framework above depicted. She also said that “the mission responds to a direct request from our Libyan partners” and that “it can now be deployed in June”. 8 The mission should be endowed with approximately 110 staff and a budget of € 30,3 million for the first 12 months (the mission should last 24 months). The mission will deploy gradually taking due account of the political and security situation as well as the local needs. As the mission should entail a transfer of know-how, the 165 staff (at full operational capability) will be made by the head of mission, 83 seconded staff, 27 international staff and 54 locally-recruited staff. From words to deeds: critical aspects The Headquarters of the Mission will be based in Tripoli, in the North of the country; not in the South as originally planned since the main areas tackled like the lack of security in the borders due to arms and drugs trafficking and uncontrolled migrations are concentrated in southern Libya. However, it could not be considered a determinant factor, though it remains an influent one, because the main task of the experts is to provide medium and long term recommendations for secure border management to help Libyan authorities in strengthening border control capacity and defining a national integrated Border Management strategy. On the other hand, the location of the Headquarters points out the short-term priority of the EU in securing itself by prioritizing the Mediterranean coast. Actually, even if the situation in the Sahel region is more stable than it was in past months, this area remains an hotbed for criminal organizations and illegal traffics. On the long term, then, the EU’s perspective should be narrow, because the problems of the South could infringe the Union’s interests, especially in the long-run. Furthermore, the comprehensive approach the EU would implement has to take in due consideration the dynamics of the entire region, the interdependencies of the local countries, not only in term of South-South migration but also concerning illegal trafficking and criminal organizations. The challenge the EU is going to face is huge though cooperation on migration control and border management is an area well known to the EU due to its past activities in this field. However, in addition to some inconsistency and political ambivalence, another weakness is lack of linearity in as much as the EU seems not so much committed to decisive actions towards Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) and towards the Security Sector Reform (SSR). Both DDR and SSR are naturally part of the EU’s response to the situation in Libya. They are managed by the EU Delegation in Tripoli. After several months, the new Head of the delegation, Nataliya Apostolova, has been appointed on 21 May 2013. She has an enormous amount of programmes and funds to manage but a small staff and scarce organization resources. This could represent a critical point for the effectiveness of the mission in a wider perspective: “financial aid administered through a three persons-strong EU Delegation in Tripoli is likely to quite insufficient to achieve the goal of building a democratic, stable and prosperous country” (Hatzigeorgopoulos and Fara- Andrianarijaona, 2013: 13). 8 Green light for civilian mission to support border security in Libya (22 May 2013), Council of the European Union, Brussels, 9478/13, Press 189 in http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/137189.pdf Francesca Arcidiacono, EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) Libya: Testing EU Actorness - 6
ReSHAPE Online Papers Series, no. 03/13 – June 2013 Conclusion After the EU’s failure in facing the Libyan civil war, the EUBAM mission is an hazardous task for the EU. Its failure will have negative consequences on the credibility of the EU’s CSDP. Divisions among the member states, which are difficult to overcome, are the reason why EU interventions are always slow, badly- and micro-managed and too weakly mandated. A clear instance of these divisions is proved by the fact that on 2 June 2013, France offered to help Libya secure borders from Islamists fleeing Mali, as said by the Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. He and the President Francois Hollande pushed the prime minister Ali Zeidan to attach importance to the issue of security and borders especially in the south. The Minister did neither talk about any kind of EU coordination nor mentioned the EUBAM Libya mission. On the contrary, he spoke about the unanimous decision by the Security Council, including China, to gradually get out of the military phase, the threats tied to regional insecurity, the interdependence with the situation in Mali, the settlement of terrorists groups and the growth of terrorism in North Africa. This is clear example of the fact that some EU’s member states act in a way totally detached from that of the European Union. The European Union has the potentialities to act at the global level but the lack of strategic consensus does not allow it. It is not a question of time and capacity, neither one tied to the famous metaphor on the transatlantic division of labor, according to which NATO “prepares dinner” while the EU “washes the dishes”. It is a matter of internal coherence/division, political will, geographical perspectives, briefly the inability of making divergences fit through “negotiated” internal convergence to the common interest of the states. The interplay of these factors causes compromises with negative results such as in the Libyan civil war where the EU members did not adopted a common position in the U.N. Security Council in regard to the establishment of the nofly zone over Libya. References Attinà F. (2011), Assessing the EU’s commitment to multilateralism CSDP and Member States’ propensity to participate in peace missions, in “Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies”, 3, 2, 5-17. Cmakalová K. and Rolenc J. (2012), Actorness and legitimacy of the European Union, in “Cooperation and Conflict”, 47, 2, 260-270. Devuyst Y. (2012), The European Council and the CFSP after the Lisbon Treaty, in “European Foreign Affairs Review”, 17, 3, 327–350. Hatzigeorgopoulos M. and Fara-Andrianarijaona L. (May 2013), EUBAM Libya: story of a long-awaited CSDP mission, European Security Review, ESR 66 – May 2013, International Security Information Service, Europe, http://www.isis-europe.eu/sites/default/files/publicationsdownloads/esr66_EUBAMLibya_May2013MHLA_0.pdf Hix S. and Hoyland B. (2011), The Political System of the European Union, Palgrave MacMillan, Great Britain, pp. 310-319. Howorth J. (2012), Decision-making in security and defense policy: Towards supranational intergovernmentalism, in “Cooperation & Conflict”, 47, 4, 433-453. Koenig N. (2012), The EU and the Libyan Crisis- In Quest of Coherence, The International Spectator: Italian Journal of International Affairs, http://www.iai.it/pdf/DocIAI/iaiwp1119.pdf. Francesca Arcidiacono, EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) Libya: Testing EU Actorness - 7
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