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In recent weeks, Libya has been collapsing at every level. Increasing tensions between the ruling families, the Dabaibas and the Haftars, led Saddam Haftar to blockade Libya’s largest oilfield last week and later march his forces west, violating the 2020 ceasefire agreement. A few days later, the parliament, under the Haftars’ influence, officially unrecognised prime minister Abdul Hamid Dabaiba’s government and Libya’s Presidency Council. Then, on 18 August, the Presidency Council dismissed the long-standing central bank governor turned Haftar-ally Sadiq al-Kabir. This could be the final shock that sends Libya’s post-2020 status quo tumbling down into a civil war.
Towards stabilisation
Focusing on any of Libya’s mini crises would be like trying to stop a collapsing cliff face by pinning individual rocks. Rather, the stabilising intervention that Libya needs is a holistic one: the policy equivalent of a net across the entire cliff face. This means jump-starting Libya’s political process with enough political capital to redirect the interests of Libya’s myopic ruling class from their petty feuding. To achieve this, the most active European states in Libya, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom should come together to:
- Build a geopolitical alliance to support a new political process. Most importantly, with the United States, which often works with Europeans on such processes and remains anxious over Russia’s deepening entrenchment in Libya. Then, influential regional powers like Algeria, Egypt, and Turkey, alongside other Europeans like Austria, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland who have their own stakes in Libya.
- Empower the interim head of the UN mission to Libya, Stephanie Khoury, to present an emergency plan for a new political process – including an election and negotiations with Libyan political heavyweights to frame their involvement in it. While Russia will undoubtedly seek to undermine Khoury, the weight of three permanent members (especially as the UK is a pen holder), and support from others in this broader group like Algeria and Switzerland (who are currently on the council) would provide enough weight. After the plan is officially announced, Europeans could then second staff to bolster the mission’s capacity.
- The alliance should then collectively pressure Libya’s political elite, namely, the leadership of its political institutions and powerful military figures, like Haftar, to de-escalate and join the stabilisation process. This involves keeping military forces within the boundaries of the 2020 ceasefire agreement and re-opening oil fields, while restricting central bank spending and halting new energy projects until after elections. This pressure should be delivered privately through bilateral meetings which blend potential punishments like sanctions with incentives like involvement in the process. A joint statement should also be issued, stating that the past week demonstrates that all Libyan political institutions have outlived their mandates, and must move towards a new, legitimate, political system. This would limit any Libyan actor’s room for manoeuvre and generate expectation from the Libyan street.
Alarm bells ringing
Haftar’s spectre of a machination to replace Dabaiba has put Algeria on high alert, all while Turkey and Russia have been increasing weapon deliveries and deepening their control over Dabaiba’s western and Haftar’s eastern armed forces respectively. If this meltdown isn’t averted, it will not only hit European migration and energy interests, but help the entrenchment of rivals near European shores, exacerbate regional crises, and create a fleet of unforeseen consequences ready to traverse the mediterranean just like Libya’s previous civil wars did in 2019 and 2014.
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