{"id":258344,"date":"2025-07-12T07:27:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T07:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/258344\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T07:27:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T07:27:12","slug":"how-a-libyan-warlord-humiliated-brussels-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/258344\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Libyan warlord humiliated Brussels \u00a0 \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Blame game<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Brussels <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/magnus-brunner-libya-migration-diplomacy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">got the blame<\/a>, with officials from Rome and Athens privately suggesting the EU team had let the rest of them down. Within the EU\u2019s own institutions, some Commission insiders were also quietly critical of how it had been handled, with the finger of suspicion pointing at the bloc\u2019s diplomatic arm, the European External Action Service.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to some involved, the risks of Haftar setting a trap were known but they decided to try their luck and hope to be able to work it out in person on the ground if anything went wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBrussels and the rest of the Europeans are fully aware that the commissioner and ministers walked into a trap in a desperate attempt to appease Haftar over his migration blackmail,\u201d said one person familiar with the discussion in Brussels. \u201cNow the Commission and Italy, which came up with the mission at the worst possible time, are under attack, with others opposed to further concessions and capitulations to Haftar, a staunch ally of Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the Commission confirmed that Team Europe would try again. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed with the leaders of Italy, Greece and Malta to keep pressing when they met on the sidelines of a Ukraine support summit in Rome on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A Commission spokesperson said von der Leyen and the other leaders agreed \u201cto continue to engage with Libya and to pursue the Team Europe approach including by resending the Team Europe delegation to Libya to continue the visit.\u201d The idea, the spokesperson suggested, would be to engage with \u201cboth sides\u201d in Libya, the implication being that this would include the Haftar-ruled east.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not clear exactly when the new mission to Libya will take place or who will be on board the plane next time.<\/p>\n<p>One major risk is that Putin\u2019s Russia now sees eastern Libya and its migration routes across the Mediterranean as an irresistible opportunity to destabilize the EU. Haftar has held multiple meetings with Russian ministers and his army has received support from the Russian military.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo one really knows what to do,\u201d said the same person familiar with the discussions quoted above. \u201cBut it\u2019s clear that appeasement isn\u2019t working and that Haftar will keep asking for more, thus advancing Russian interests in Libya in exchange for a handful fewer migrants landing in Crete.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blame game Brussels got the blame, with officials from Rome and Athens privately suggesting the EU team had&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2740,4328,768,6659,2000,299,5187,1450,2199,97214,6656,23906,24479,6657,2597,12337,332,811,657,1220,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-258344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-airports","10":"tag-borders","11":"tag-crisis","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-greece","16":"tag-italy","17":"tag-khalifa-haftar","18":"tag-libya","19":"tag-magnus-brunner","20":"tag-malta","21":"tag-migration","22":"tag-military","23":"tag-missions","24":"tag-russia","25":"tag-security","26":"tag-ukraine","27":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","28":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114839083019761467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}