Italy actively supports the United Nations initiatives to promote a political process that leads to the reunification of Libyan institutions. Addressing the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, which does not exercise control over Cyrenaica, Italy calls for intensifying efforts to combat human trafficking. Giorgia Meloni’s visit to Tripoli, the fourth in the last two years, lasted just a few hours but had multiple objectives. During the Italian-Libyan Business Forum, the Prime Minister declared that we are in a “completely new phase” of economic and commercial relations between the two countries, highlighting several commercial agreements and announcing the return of Ita Airways flights starting from January 2025.

Present at the forum were local entrepreneurs and over two hundred Italian companies, along with the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso. It had been over ten years since a similar event had been held in Libya. This meeting also allowed for a bilateral meeting with Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dabaiba, focused on the management of migratory flows. Meloni stressed the importance of strengthening cooperation with countries of origin and establishing “egalitarian partnerships” with African nations under the Mattei Plan. Italy focuses on legal migration paths through decrees on foreign labor flows. “Mechanisms that work only if the production systems of the nations involved communicate,” Meloni said, stressing that the relationship with Libya is crucial for Italy and Europe.

In this context, the Prime Minister highlighted the desire to strengthen bilateral cooperation in various industrial sectors, recalling that “Italy represents for Libya a privileged access to one of the largest energy markets in the world: the European one, composed of 500 million consumers”. Among the agreements signed during the meeting is also the assignment to the Italian company Todini of the construction of two lots of the so-called Highway of Peace, a project started in 2008 by Muammar Gaddafi and Silvio Berlusconi, but interrupted by internal conflicts. In recent months, Meloni has tried to dialogue with all the actors involved in the Libyan situation, aiming for complex stability. In Tripoli, she reiterated Italy’s commitment to supporting Libya and its people in this new phase of reconstruction and development.