Eduardo González
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, completed yesterday an intense official visit to Libya in which he announced that Spain will provide economic and military aid to “the stabilization and reconciliation” of the country, attended the symbolic reopening of the Spanish Embassy in Tripoli and offered the support of Spanish companies for the reconstruction.
The visit, in which he was accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya (something unusual in the official trips of the presidents of the Government), began with a meeting with the Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity of Libya, Abdul Hamid Muhammad Dbeibah. Libya’s interim executive, which emerged from the UN mediation process that led to the ceasefire of August 21, 2020, will have as its main mission to lead the political transition until the December 24 elections, which are intended to put an end to the conflict that the country has been suffering for ten years.
After their bilateral meeting, Sánchez and Dbeiba took part in a Spain-Libya business meeting during which the President of the Government highlighted the contribution that Spanish companies can make in sectors such as construction, infrastructure, renewable energies, agriculture, livestock and hydrocarbons, an area in which work is already underway. This is the case of Repsol, which extracts around 300,000 barrels per day in a country that produces 1.4 million barrels per day. In addition to Repsol (its CEO, Josu Jon Imaz), Sánchez traveled to Libya accompanied by representatives of Indra, Navantia, Aertec, Triarena, Idom, Instituto IMO and HM Hospitales.
Later, Pedro Sánchez and Abdul Hamid Dbeiba signed, in the meeting room of the Prime Minister’s Office, four Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) on transport, agriculture, customs and higher education. In addition, Arancha Gonzalez Laya and her Libyan counterpart, Najla Mangoush, signed two other MOUs on political consultations and diplomatic schools. The other two MoUs (for a total of eight) were signed by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce (on economic, commercial, scientific and technical cooperation) and by the Ministry of Culture and Sports (on joint cooperation in the field of cultural property and in the fight against illicit trade in cultural heritage).
Following the signing of the Memoranda, Sánchez and Dbeiba made a joint institutional statement to the media in the course of which the President of the Government stated that “Libya is going through a historic moment, a great opportunity, and Spain wants to be at its side, as we have been from the beginning, supporting the stabilization and reconciliation process”.
In the same statement, Sánchez recalled that “the international community supports the holding of national elections and Spain wants to support this process”. For this reason, he announced that Spain will contribute, through the United Nations, 100,000 euros for the development of free and fair elections. Likewise, he continued, our country is going to participate in the Libyan mechanism of supervision of the cease-fire “to guarantee security and peace-keeping”, for which it is going to put at the disposal of the UN five members of the Armed Forces, two from the National Police Corps and two from the Civil Guard. “We have notified the United Nations of this”, he added. The Spanish support, he added, will be complemented with another 50,000 euros for demining work.
Reopening of the Embassy
One of the most symbolic moments of the trip was the act of complete reopening of the Spanish Embassy in Tripoli, including consular services and visa issuance. The act, “loaded with meaning”, is “a clear example of our country’s support to the Libyan political process”, declared Sánchez. The Embassy was evacuated on July 31, 2014 and, since then, the ambassador had exercised his functions from Tunisia, while Spain kept open the residence and the chancery in Tripoli waiting for them to be reoccupied. The current ambassador is Javier García-Larrache, appointed in July 2020.
After the inauguration of the Embassy, and as a final point of the official visit, Sanchez was received by the President of the Presidential Council of Libya, Mohamed Menfi, with whom he discussed, among other issues, the process of stability in the country, trade relations, security and the fight against COVID-19.
