The burgeoning interest was illustrated by a meeting on Thursday between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, the U.N.-backed, Tripoli-based leader of western Libya. The two leaders discussed “strengthening the partnership in the energy sector” between the countries, Dbeibah wrote on X. A spokesperson for the Italian government declined to comment.
The Copasir delegation itself is split on Libya’s potential. In an interview with POLITICO, Copasir Secretary Ettore Rosato — a lawmaker in the opposition Democratic Party — argued that sustainably increasing output would require investment over many years, with parallel investment in renewables needed to “avoid absorbing all additional production through domestic consumption.”
He agreed with Borghi that Libyan authorities were enthusiastic at the prospect of boosting Greenstream output, but said the Italian government was aware of the limited short-term potential of the infrastructure upgrades touted by Eni. “Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking they can produce positive effects in the short term,” he said.
The trip comes amid what diplomats and business leaders in the country have described to POLITICO as a broader U.S. push to unify the country and open it up for more energy trade, which has coincided with renewed — if cautious — engagement by Western energy giants, including Eni and France’s TotalEnergies, as well as several U.S. oil giants. Eni, for its part, discovered two large gas fields off the country’s coast.
Italy has featured heavily in the U.S.-led diplomatic effort, hosting meetings between the U.S. and senior Libyan officials from both administrations in Rome last year. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani himself endorsed the U.S. re-engagement when asked by POLITICO in February whether it would be beneficial to Italy’s energy sector.
“For us, the Americans are friends — to work with Americans in Libya is not a problem for us,” he said at an event in Rome. “My position is always in favor of more American involvement.” He added that engaging with Libya was vital to countering growing Russian influence in the east of the country, which is dominated by the Kremlin-backed warlord Khalifa Haftar.
Libya has also entered into the “orbit” of talks on diversification in Brussels, an EU official said, while cautioning that the country remains only a peripheral prospect due to its instability.