The European Union will extend its military mission in the Mediterranean for two years and police the UN arms embargo on conflict-torn Libya, senior EU officials said on Wednesday.
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The unit’s member states will “adopt a decision next week to extend its mandate by another two years until the end of March 2023”, said a senior EU official.
The decision to extend the mandate comes when UN experts warned that the embargo imposed on Libya in 2011 was “completely ineffective” as it was clearly violated by many international actors.
The EU launched its Irini operation – which has four ships and six aircraft – in March to carry out inspections of ships at sea in an attempt to restrict the flow of weapons to Libya.
The country has been torn apart by civil war since a NATO-backed uprising led to the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
It has been divided between the UN-recognized National Accord government, based in the capital Tripoli and supported by Turkey, and an administration in the east supported by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, with support from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia.
Libya’s parliament voted last week to approve a unity government in a move that the EU hailed as a “significant breakthrough” in stabilizing the country.
“Now that Libya has embarked on the path to peace, it is more necessary than ever to continue our efforts,” the EU official said.
The bloc is keen to see an end to the unrest in Libya as years of conflict have left the country’s stretches as lawless gray areas used by traffickers to drag migrants towards Europe.
A 550-page report by UN experts on Tuesday said a number of international supporters on both sides of the conflict had violated the arms embargo – including the Russian Wagner group and US private military contractor Erik Prince.
The experts used photos, diagrams and maps to support the intrusions of the documented ones, which cover the period from October 2019 to January 2021.
Haftar’s international supporters – including the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Russia, Syria and Egypt – have all been identified in previous UN reports or in the one published on Tuesday.
Turkey and Qatar, which support the Tripoli authorities, have also been appointed by experts.
The EU mission last year illegally inspected a ship flying the Turkish flag in the Mediterranean and drew criticism from Ankara.
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