The European Council on Foreign Relations

Another chance for EUFOR Libya?

Date: 22nd August 2011  |  Author: Richard Gowan,

Categories: Middle East and North Africa,
Tags: arab spring, libya, peacekeeping, un

The collapse of the Gaddafi regime – although not yet complete – should be a source of satisfaction but not complacency. Libya’s rebels may win the battle of Tripoli, but it is not certain that they can establish stability, security and normality without outside help. Frequent reports of extra-judicial killings and disorder in rebel-held Benghazi have not inspired confidence.

Luckily, outside help is forthcoming. The next weeks will see international officials (and no doubt a lot of spooks) hurry to Tripoli with offers of assistance. Months ago, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a Special Adviser on Post-Conflict Planning on Libya to prepare for this moment. The adviser, Ian Martin (who I previously had the privilege of working with on a review of the UN’s political missions) has had time to make detailed plans. While European governments and EU officials will want to play a part in reconstructing Libya, the UN is best-placed to coordinate the overall international effort.

But the next few weeks may well be chaotic, with regime die-hards and criminal opportunists on the loose, and it will be necessary to ensure that UN and other civilian officials are sufficiently well-protected to do their job properly. It’s unlikely that Libya will turn into another Iraq, but it’s certainly conceivable that someone might try to repeat the attack on the UN headquarters in 2003 that killed its chief Sergio Viera de Mello.

In this context, the EU could help Libya’s transition to stability by resurrecting a proposal that failed to work out earlier this year. Back in April, the EU Council approved an EU military mission (EUFOR Libya) to help get humanitarian aid into Libya if UN aid officials requested help. As I pointed out in an op-ed in June, the proposal wasn’t very well thought-out, and the mission never got off the ground.

But now the idea’s time may have come. If the EU Council wants to help speed up the Libyan transition, it should declare its willingness to offer one or two of the EU’s Battle Groups to protect and assist UN and other civilian officials for up to three months.  This wouldn’t be full-scale peacekeeping, but a narrower job of guarding compounds and convoys and providing secure communications while Libya moves towards stability.

A larger, longer-term peace operation may be needed in Libya. As I’ve argued before, that might be a job for Arab troops under UN command rather than Europeans, not least for cost reasons. But the EU has the rapidly-deployable forces available to secure the all-important first stage of post-Gaddafi peacebuilding.

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