ist actions and chemical armament. The pivotal instance, still at the centre of heated debate in Europe, was the bombing of the PanAm flight 103 in 1988. Libyan admission of responsibility and reimbursement of $3 billion led to the end of the 1992 trade and arms embargo, and the abandonment of chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction projects in 2003 was also a proof of progressive moves towards a Western concept of cooperative and comprehensive security alliance. Secondly, if this process appears ethically appropriate in the Western eyes, it is important to bear in mind the market driven necessity of such behaviour. In Libya, in 2007, the hydrocarbons sector accounted for 71% of nominal GDP, more than 97% of exports, and 90% of government revenues. In 2008, mineral fuels represented 62% of EU-27 total import from Africa ). In the same year, 90% of Libyan exports to EU-27 were mineral fuels, for a value of more than 35 million Euros. The five main EU trading partners with Africa in 2008 were Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the UK; member states that are indeed the principal political voices of the EU. Italy and France are furthermore the countries that established key diplomatic contacts with Libya, and, not to forget, two of the many countries with loud anti-Islamic political forces. It is this last factor that provides the most controversial element of relations with Libya: immigration regulatory policies and funds. The EU has consolidated the idea of a Mediterranean region in 1995 with the Barcelona Process, linking the two shores of the Mediterranean and creating a bridge with the Middle East. The challenge that the Barcelona Process faced was to overcome the asymmetrical relations between Europe and North Africa, with the latter perceiving its role as “policy taker”. In order to modify this imbalance, the EU adopted the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2003, which is an attempt to “Europeanise” Eastern and Southern peripheries of continental Europe. Its main tool is the European Neighbourhood Policy Instrument (ENPI), which assists specific cross-bordercooperation programs and has a budget of 12 billion Euro between 2007-2013, which is used to harmonise legislation at political-security, economic and socio-cultural level. Within this sub-regional partnership, Libya has a position of relative power that other Maghreb countries (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) do not possess: control of immigration fluxes to Europe. When sub-regional agreements imply an uneven relation, Libya has been using such issues to confront EU superior position. Migration flows to Libya have their origin in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Palestine and have increased from 1989 with the creation of the Arab Maghreb Union and with the active involvement of Muammar Gaddafi in
pan-African policies. Libya, as an oil-producing country, is seen as a possible destination for labour migrants, or else, as a necessary stop before journeys to the coasts of Italy, Spain, Greece and Malta. Migration from North Africa and the Middle East has many different aspects. It can be voluntary, when people leave their country for socioeconomic reasons or forced, when people escape war, political persecution or oppressive regimes and therefore seek asylum. Factors like family reunification, the necessity to enlarge Europe’s labour force and the migrants’ wish to gain access to educational resources and basic freedoms also play an important role. Among these aspects, the darkest area lies in the organisation of such flows: it is either in the hands of “hierarchical mafia-type organised crime groups”, or in deeprouted “smuggling networks of locally operating individuals”, based on family and ethnic ties. In front of the EU commitment to protect human rights in the Second and Third legislative pillars, Libya does not have any asylum regulations, has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, and has expelled the members of the UN Refugee Agency from its territory. In front of the uncontrolled detention of migrants and asylum seekers in Libya, Italy has signed the “Treaty of Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation” with the Jamahiriya in 2008, paying $5 billion for its colonial invasion, donating police boats and equipment, and granting education scholarships. At the same time, the EU Commission is negotiating funds for 2011-2013, having rejected Gaddafi’s request of €5 billion and offering €50 million instead. This negotiation is still in its early stages. What becomes morally appropriate here is the diplomatic relationship that has a single scope: survival. In realist terms, European economic survival and political survival are ethical criteria that have to become appropriate policy-making motifs of action. In the case of EU-Libya relations, the intersection of need for primary energy resources and need for migrant blockage has overshadowed the only fundamental moral issue to solve: inhuman treatment of migrants. The benefits of this relation allow European states to maintain their high economic development and attempt to reduce of their inner religious and racist struggles. The costs are tangible in terms of answers to “diplomatic blackmail”, high sums of funds and neglect of the destruction of human rights. While, on the one side, the “Christian Europe” has participated in the politicisation of religion in modern discourses of clashes of civilisations, on the other side, it is funding the same “Arab enemy” that it considers a threat to its security and an inferior actor in world politics, reminding a lot to the ideology of the age of Crusades. Nothing appears to be moral or ethical in this double-dealing. The power of reason has been subdued to the power of the “black gold”.
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