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DPA
Brussels
EU foreign ministers resolved to set up a new mission to monitor the failing UN embargo on arms flowing into conflict-torn Libya in a surprise breakthrough at talks in Brussels on Monday.
“This is major support for the Berlin [peace] process, which at its core is about keeping the parties in the civil war away from their backers,” Germany Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.
The new mission is to involve aerial, land and naval assets, according to Italian Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio. The details are to be worked out in the weeks to come.
Key to the breakthrough is the inclusion of measures to allay concerns that the presence of European ships in the Mediterranean Sea would create a pull factor for migrants seeking to reach the European Union from Libya.
These include deploying the vessels in the eastern Mediterranean, away from migrant crossing routes, as well as a pledge to suspend the naval operations if a surge in attempted crossings is detected, di Maio added.
This will be “a totally new mission” replacing the EU’s currently suspended Operation Sophia, his Austrian counterpart Alexander Schallenberg said.
The EU pledged to do its utmost to prevent arms from entering Libya after an international conference on the conflict in January, raising the prospect of reactivating Operation Sophia.
The mission’s official purpose was to break up people-smuggling networks and monitor the embargo, but its naval vessels also picked up migrants stranded at sea, in line with international maritime obligations.
It was suspended early last year over a spat about where rescued people should disembark. Migration is a domestically sensitive issue for many EU governments.
Vienna had been particularly vocal in its concerns about bringing back the suspended mission.
“We want a military mission and not a humanitarian mission. And this mission has a focus on the weapons embargo,” Schallenberg said.
“The issue is not whether or not people are being rescued at sea,” Schallenberg noted.
“But we don’t want a mission that’s misused by traffickers for their business model.” EU foreign policy Josep Borrell previously voiced doubt that there was evidence Sophia had served as a pull factor.
Setting up a new mission will take much longer than reactivating Sophia. This could have been done within one day, according to an EU diplomat.
International leaders vowed last month to uphold a United Nations arms embargo, enable a peace process and end outside interference and military support for fighting factions in Libya at a conference in Berlin.
Brussels
EU foreign ministers resolved to set up a new mission to monitor the failing UN embargo on arms flowing into conflict-torn Libya in a surprise breakthrough at talks in Brussels on Monday.
“This is major support for the Berlin [peace] process, which at its core is about keeping the parties in the civil war away from their backers,” Germany Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.
The new mission is to involve aerial, land and naval assets, according to Italian Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio. The details are to be worked out in the weeks to come.
Key to the breakthrough is the inclusion of measures to allay concerns that the presence of European ships in the Mediterranean Sea would create a pull factor for migrants seeking to reach the European Union from Libya.
These include deploying the vessels in the eastern Mediterranean, away from migrant crossing routes, as well as a pledge to suspend the naval operations if a surge in attempted crossings is detected, di Maio added.
This will be “a totally new mission” replacing the EU’s currently suspended Operation Sophia, his Austrian counterpart Alexander Schallenberg said.
The EU pledged to do its utmost to prevent arms from entering Libya after an international conference on the conflict in January, raising the prospect of reactivating Operation Sophia.
The mission’s official purpose was to break up people-smuggling networks and monitor the embargo, but its naval vessels also picked up migrants stranded at sea, in line with international maritime obligations.
It was suspended early last year over a spat about where rescued people should disembark. Migration is a domestically sensitive issue for many EU governments.
Vienna had been particularly vocal in its concerns about bringing back the suspended mission.
“We want a military mission and not a humanitarian mission. And this mission has a focus on the weapons embargo,” Schallenberg said.
“The issue is not whether or not people are being rescued at sea,” Schallenberg noted.
“But we don’t want a mission that’s misused by traffickers for their business model.” EU foreign policy Josep Borrell previously voiced doubt that there was evidence Sophia had served as a pull factor.
Setting up a new mission will take much longer than reactivating Sophia. This could have been done within one day, according to an EU diplomat.
International leaders vowed last month to uphold a United Nations arms embargo, enable a peace process and end outside interference and military support for fighting factions in Libya at a conference in Berlin.
