The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has finalized on Saturday a «historic» agreement between the energy company Eni, controlled by the Italian government, and the Libyan state-owned company for approximately 7.3 billion euros to start up two gas fields off the coast of Tripoli.
The agreement aims to revive Libya’s hydrocarbon energy sector — which is its main source of income — as well as providing Italy with at least an additional 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas from 2026, thus taking a further step in its desire to replace Russian gas.
The signatures were affixed by ENI’s CEO, Claudio Descalzi, and the Chairman of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC), Farhat Bengdara.
In his first visit to the country after taking office in October last year, Meloni highlighted the historical relations between the two countries at a time when Libya is in the midst of a new episode of its long political crisis and is once again divided into two parallel administrations.
Meloni was received by the Prime Minister of unity, Abdelhamid Debeibé, who is not recognized by the authorities in the east of the country, who consider his mandate illegitimate as his term has expired without the holding of elections that have been constantly postponed and now have no fixed date.
In addition, Meloni has also discussed the current position of Libya is as an essential stopover on the migration route to Europe and indispensable actor in the strategy against unauthorized arrivals that the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party intends to implement, despite multiple complaints from international bodies accusing its authorities of mistreatment and abuse of detained migrants.
«Libya is a priority for Italian security, it is no coincidence that the visit to Tripoli is one of my first institutional visits to the area,» Meloni said in statements reported by the newspaper ‘L’Stampa’, in a meeting to negotiate with Tripoli more economic aid in exchange for even stricter controls against migration.
«We must redouble our efforts», assured Meloni, for whom «cooperation in the fight against irregular immigration flows is a fundamental issue for everyone».
On the crisis in Libya, Meloni assured that «Italy will undertake to do its part to ensure greater unity on the part of the international community on the issue».
«We have reiterated Italy’s full readiness to favor a legitimate path for the holding of elections and for the stabilization of the Libyan situation, essential to allow our partnership to reach a much greater potential than it already exists,» he said.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
