This month of December 2020, Friends of Europe published a discussion paper directed by journalist and analyst Mary Fitzgerald entitled “Should the EU deploy a military mission to Libya?”. In the line of the EU’s engagement in Libya and frequent debates on how far the institution should intervene to further stabilisation in Libya, this paper gathers the opinion of six analysts and scholars on the matter, Emadeddin Badi, Hala Bugaighis, Anas El Gomati, Majda Fallah, Mustafa Fetouri and Youssef Mohammad Sawani. The paper does not intend to reflect the EU’s position on the issue but in the contrary shed light on Libyan perspectives. To quote Fitzgerald,
The question of sending European boots to Libya looks very different when viewed from a Libyan perspective, as our contributors – hailing from Libyan politics, academia and civil society – demonstrate. In Europe, those who advocate for such a deployment tend to discuss it in terms of EU’s geopolitical ambitions more than Libyan realities or needs. Libyan voices are rarely part of the public conversation in Europe about what the EU should do in Libya. That needs to change. It starts here.
Click here to read the full paper.