European Union nations are very keen to see relative calm return to Libya. That’s a clear priority particularly because recent fighting has all but shut down oil exports. Recent deals on arms embargo and a tentative truce have created high hopes.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s solution to safeguarding the truce is to invade outright, saying the union needs to back up its diplomacy with “hard power” to enforce the deal.
A lot of EU leaders are very uncomfortable with the idea of just up and invading Libya. Moreover, discussion of creating a proper EU military are still not far along, so there isn’t an official force to just send.
That might actually simplify matters, as there is unlikely to be enough consensus in the EU to head into Libya, but a few EU nations could individually invade and coordinate their efforts with the EU executive powers.
It’s not clear how another Western invasion is supposed to take Libya closer to peace. It is clear, however, that van der Leyen and some other EU leaders are very keen to throw their weight around regionally.
Why not? US back to Iraq, EU back to Libya.
By all means — let us not allow Libya to have peace and then sell oil to provide for the livelihood of their population. European values at work.
EU is powerful & don’t take no guff from nobody.
Very powerful. Very. A watermelon. Green on the outside, red on the inside.
What, exactly, ist Frau von der Leyen proposing to send to Libya? Ze Panzers?
LOL
Yeah right. None of Europe’s armies could muster enough forces to project anything worthwhile into Libya. Most they would be able to do is conduct a lot of spec ops involving spotters, unconventional forces, and heavy amounts of air and artillery support sourced from fortified locations.
Remember the good old days when “terrorist” Gaddafi’s Libya had the highest standard of living in Northern Africa?