Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah discussed with the CEO of Italian Energy company Eni, Claudio Descalzi, ways to promote the company’s social responsibility in certain vital areas in Libya, such as health, education, vocational training and electricity.
During Sunday’s meeting, both sides focused on ways to spin the wheel of Libya’s economy and bolster cooperation in the field of renewable energy in response to the rising global demand for energy, taking into account the escalating environmental challenges.
For his part, Eni’s head expressed the company’s full commitment with regard to the activities and operational projects in the country, with a focus on natural gas and minimizing the use of carbon-intensive energy sources.
According to Lovin Malta, the former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has opened up about a meeting he had with Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, a few days before the Arab Spring spread to the North African country.
Interviewed on L-Erbgħa Fost il-Ġimgħa last night, Gonzi recounted how he and then Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg had visited Libya at the start of 2011.
Malta was immediately served with a diplomatic headache when two Libyan pilots defected to the island after refusing to bomb civilians in Benghazi on behalf of Gaddafi.
Gonzi recounted how he immediately decided to give the pilots political asylum because “it was the morally correct thing to do”, and how he decided not to return their fighter jets to Libya the next day.
“I felt that the people of Malta couldn’t be complicit with this brutality,” he said.
The day the pilots landed, Gonzi was also informed that a private Tunisian plane was requesting an emergency landing in Malta. Acting upon the advice of an unnamed advisor, Gonzi asked the plane for its passenger list and showed the list of names to the two Libyan pilots.
During the interview last night, Gonzi harked back to his first-ever meeting with Gaddafi as Prime Minister way back in 2004, when Malta had just become an EU member state.
“We met under a tent and the first thing he told me was that we made a big mistake in joining the EU and that we should have joined the African Union instead… he told me that we don’t belong in Europe.”
“His comment surprised me though, because a few years earlier, [former President] Guido de Marco had visited Gaddafi and told him that Malta intends to become an EU member state. Gaddafi had encouraged it back then.”
The European Union is set to extend its Libya arms embargo mission for two years, a senior EU official said.
The mandate of Operation IRINI was initially scheduled to last until March 31, however the EU27 bloc is expected to “adopt a decision next week extending its mandate for two extra years until end of March 2023,” according to the EU official.
The EU operation EUNAVFOR MED IRINI has helped to enforce the United Nations arms embargo against Libya since 2020. In addition, the operation is tasked with investigating illegal exports of oil as well as combating human trafficking.
The head of the Libyan Business Council (LBC), Abdalla Fellah, British Ambassador to Libya, Nick Hopton, and Country Director for Libya at the UK Department of International Trade, Lydie Sheehan, met on Wednesday at the British Embassy in Tripoli to discuss private sector cooperation.
The two sides referred to the distinguished commercial relations between Libya and Britain, and the importance of restoring such commercial relations to their previous state as well as the return of the British embassy with its full capabilities to Libya to facilitate the movement of business leaders to Britain.
The LBC, for its part, stated that it will assist any British company wishing to invest and establish partnerships with the Libyan side for the mutual benefit of both economies.
The Head of the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL), Wiam Al-Abdali, met on Thursday with the Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity (GNU), Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, and the Governor of the Central Bank, Al-Siddiq Al-Kabir.
During the meeting, Al-Abdali said that Libya could see five hours of rolling blackout a day in the peak summer heat, but there couldn’t be any power outages if GECOL managed to provide additional 1500 megawatts, adding that they have a plan to produce 1200/1500 megawatts to end the crisis of power outages and decrease rolling blackout hours immensely.
For his part, Dbeibeh confirmed the need to end the obstacles facing GECOL in order to help the company with providing better services to Libyans.
The Libyan businessman, Husni Bey, said on Thursday that the dollar exchange rate fell below 4.97 dinars in the parallel market, adding that it will continue to fall to 4.80 dinars, while noting that it could amount to less than 3 dinars within 18 months.
“This can be achieved only through removing wife and children’s allowance together with the subsidies, increasing the minimum wage to LYD 750, and allocating a state budget that must not exceed LYD 75 billion,” Husni Bey said.
The new Minister of Economy and Trade of the Government of National Unity (GNU), Mohamed Hwej, met with the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL), Al-Siddiq Al-Kabir, on Tursday.
The meeting came in light of the complementarity of action between both institutions. The two parties discussed the current economic situation and developed a joint political vision to turn around the country’s once-vibrant economy.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), Mustafa Sanalla, discussed on Thursday the ongoing preparations for the restart of operations at the Ras Lanuf Oil and Gas Manufacturing Company’s polyethylene and ethylene plants.
MustafaSanalla looked at the budgets and financial resources required by Ras Lanuf to carry out maintenance work on some of its facilities and to complete and implement projects.
They also addressed the company’s overall activity, the challenges it faces, and the ways to overcome them.
The NOC stated that this will contribute to increasing productive capacity, creating jobs for the private sector, and spatial development in the region.
A member of the House of Representatives revealed in a statement to Sada Economic Newspaper that the 2021 budget is slightly less than LYD 100 billion and is in the range of LYD 90 billion.
The source said that salary budgets amount to LYD 30 billion, including a 20% raise in public sector wages.
He pointed out that the draft budget presented by the Libyan Government of National Unity (GNU) sets LYD 6 billion for wife and children’s allowance, adding that the government seeks to increase it to LYD 10 billion so that the citizen can receive it every two months instead of one month.
It will be reminded that the Prime Minister of the Libyan Government of National Unity (GNU) Abd Alhamid Aldabaiba, presented on Wednesday a copy of the draft 2021 general budget law to the High State Council for approval.
At the same time, Libya’s parliament, the House of Representatives, announced that its Finance Committee had received the draft 2021 budget and was studying it.
Tunisia on Wednesday reiterated full support for Libya’s democratic process and vowed to bolster bilateral cooperation between the two countries.
President Kais Saied landed in the capital’s Mitiga International Airport and was received by Mohammad Younes Menfi, head of Libya’s Presidency Council. They then headed for talks and the Tunisian leader also met Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, leader of the new Government of National Unity (GNU).
“We will work together to restore normal relations at all levels,” Menfi said at a brief news conference with Saied.
Saied’s office said the talks focused on the economy and trade between the two nations, along with Tunisia’s support for a democratic path in Libya. “It’s time to overcome all causes of estrangement,” Saied said, without elaborating.
In a joint press conference, the Tunisian presidency said that the two countries have agreed on reactivating high level committees, chambers of commerce and bilateral agreements.
They further stressed their “determination to facilitate the movement of people and merchandise across borders”.
“They also emphasized the need to reactivate the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) at the level of foreign ministers and heads of state so as to serve the interests of Maghrebi peoples”.
Saied said he also discussed the case of two Tunisian journalists — Sofiene Chourabi and Nadhir Guetari — who disappeared in eastern Libya in 2014.
