The curious case of Italy and Libya

Last Wednesday, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti announced that Italy will renew the 2008 “friendship deal” with Libya after meeting Mustafa Abdul Jalil in Rome. Now that the Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is dead and Libya is temporarily run by a transitional government, it is no longer embarrassing for Italy to share friendly relations with the Arab country. However, in the past years things have been quite complicated between the two countries and the fulfilment of the friendship deal came after a long series of painful diplomatic episodes. The story of Italy and Libya's turbulent relationship is an old one, and it arches back to the beginning of the last century. In 1911, after a brief war against the Ottoman Empire, Italy took control of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. The two territories were then merged in 1934 to form Libya.  In those years, plenty of Italians migrated to the country and settled there, opening factories and starting professional activities. However, Italy lost control of the country in 1943 and officially renounced it in 1947, leaving it under the control of England and France. It was only in 1951 that Libya gained independence and was run by King Idris’ monarchy for 18ears. The two countries didn’t experience any more controversy until Gaddafi took power after a coup d’état in 1969. At that point, the Colonel started an anti-Italy campaign to gain popularity amongst his people, fuelling Libyans’ old resentment for the Italian colonisation. As some of his first measures, he nationalised Italian firms in the country, confiscated the properties of 35,000-odd Italo-Libyan citizens for a what would today be worth 3 billion euros, and finally expelled them. Gaddafi’s anti-Italian propaganda even reached the point of appointing a “Day of Ven gence” – every October 7 – against Italy, which only cheased to exist in 2008 when the “Friendship deal” was signed. However, the road towards reconciliation was still long and fraught with trouble. During the seventies, Gaddafi’s regime started to put forward unbearable and quite unusual requests to make Italy pay what the Colonel considered its debt to Libya. First of all, Libya asked for a compensation for the damages Italy had caused during the colonisation, as well as the reconstruction of hospitals and infrastructures and the mining clearance of Second World War’s territories. Although most European countries have refused to pay money back for damages caused during colonisation, Italy had always left space for Libya to put forward such demands. The reasons were quite obvious. First of all, Gaddafi was a threat on the geo-political front and supported international terrorism; second, Libya used to be a great oil provider to Italian multinational oil and gas company ENI. Finally, from the eighties Libya played a key role in containing migration fluxes from North Africa to Italy. The first draft of an agreement between the two countries was signed in 1998 and it was called the “Comunicato Congiunto” – joined statement. The statement included a series of commitments for the Italian government and the implementation of a capital mixed society in Libya. However, the agreement wasn’t ratified as Gaddafi wanted to get more out of it. At that point, a debate about the opportunity of making a “grand gesture” towards the Arab dictator started in Italy, in order to avoid further threats and put an end to the story once for all. The argument was finally closed by the signature in Rome of the friendly deal in 2008, under Berlusconi’s government. The deal was divided into three parts. The first one ratified a commitment not to attack or invade each other’s territories and to respect each others’ legislations with no interferences. The second is specifically about Italian duties towards Libya and it states that Italy should give $5 billion in 20 years for infrastructure and other construction projects, while Libya should guarantee Italian firms could work in the country without restrictions and readmit Italian citizens who had been expelled. The last part regarded mutual respect in terms of official visits to the countries and most of all ratified a plan to contain terrorism and immigration from North Africa to Italy’s southern coasts. Italian public opinion overall generally did not like the idea of having to compromise with a dictator to calm down his fury and contain his extravagance. However, the necessity of containing immigration - and to keep receiving oil from Libya - kept the major part of Berlusconi's electorate at bay. After 2008, Gaddafi paid three visits to Italy raising public opinion-led concerns for his attitude and embarassing declarations. Apart from arriving in Rome escorted by his all-women bodyguards and camping inside the city's park Villa Papmhili, he organised a couple of conferences about Islam and the teaching of the Quran, Islam's holy text. All of them were attended by "hostesses" recruited from agencies, many of which received such a bad treatment that the at-the-time vice-president of the lower chamber Rosy Bindi strongly said harshly: "Only in Berlusconi's Italy, where the women's body has been reduced to a product to sell, it is possible to assist the celebration of someone like Gaddafi." During a visit to the University La Sapienza of Rome, Gaddafi was largely criticised by students. In signature fashion, in an official meeting with the Italian cabinet, the Colonel even said that “US are terrorists just like Bin Laden” and that “ dictatorships are not a problem if they act in the interest of the people”. Three years on, Gaddafi and Berlusconi are gone - both replaced, for different reasons, by other politicians. However, the deal still stands - and Italy has managed to secure its ties to one of its main energy providers.