Libyan Prime Minister Osama Hamad, close to Marshal Khalifa Haftar, has established a blockade of oil production. Just as the essential services of the Central Bank in Libya are suspended due to the political clash between Tripoli and Benghazi regarding the governor Siddiq al Kabir.
Kabir, well regarded by many Western chancelleries, is also in charge of financing both the governments of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, rivals to each other. Since he took office, Kabir has always financially supported Cyrenaica dominated by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar - and from which Hamad comes - more than Tripolitania, governed by Abdulhamid Dabaiba.
Although the state oil company NOC has not yet confirmed the blockade, Haftar has already suspended production at the Sharara field for several weeks. The situation in Libya could once again degenerate into clashes between militias.
ENI is monitoring the situation, but the joint blockade of oil and credit lines does not benefit either the company or Italy. In fact, the Meloni government, also by virtue of the “Mattei Plan”, has heavily exposed itself in Libya, opening up to Haftar in search of stability.
There are some issues that intertwine political interests with Italian economic ones in Libya and that fit, at least in theory, into the strategic profile of the "Mattei Plan": above all, the reconstruction of Derna and that of the country's airports, together with the reactivation of air routes. After all, it would be wrong to limit Rome's interests in Libya to the energy-oil field alone (however fundamental) or to the fight against migrant trafficking. The reconstruction of essential and strategically valuable infrastructures in countries devastated by conflicts and emergencies has always been one of the levers of Italian action in the world; one could say that this was at one time part of its "creative sphere" of its foreign policy.
Today this particular type of soft power which intertwines economics and political and personal relations is inscribed in the logic of an Atlanticism which has become stronger also in consideration of the armed presence of Russia Africa Corps (formerly Wagner) in Cyrenaica and the Turks (who play an individual game in NATO) in Tripolitania.
Of course, in a country in civil war - whether fought or latent - you can't pretend not to support your businesses in the shadow of weapons. The situation is far more complex for Italian companies in Libya than it was during the Gaddafi era. This doesn't mean, however, that Rome can't seek an alternative way to encourage investments in its former colony.
To do this, it is inevitable to try to dialogue with all the parties involved. This would also explain the government's desire to open a political-diplomatic channel with Haftar. It lost the opportunity to be Tripolitania's privileged interlocutor in 2019, when Rome refused to militarily support Sarraj's executive against Haftar's militias, ending up being preempted by Turkey (gross error, the second particularly serious after the mismanagement of the conflict against Muammar Gaddafi in 2011), refusing to talk to Cyrenaica would have been a grave mistake.
From this point of view - dragging with it, however, other problems - the realist approach of the "Mattei Plan" could mitigate what has always been one of the limits of Rome's policy in Libya, that is, a limited number of interlocutors. The Russians consider Tobruk as the port of reference for the arrival of weapons directed to theAfrica Corps, just as it would be difficult not to notice the Chinese support for Benghazi. But in politics every empty space is occupied by opponents and to continue not wanting to talk to Haftar to follow the UN dictate - which in the wake of the Dabaiba crisis has lost all credibility - would risk wrecking Italian projects in the (former) Fourth Shore.
Photo: Presidency of the Council of Ministers
