On Wednesday, officials in Athens and Rome pointed the finger at Brussels and its diplomatic service while some of Brunner’s own colleagues inside the Commission admitted the EU side had messed up. The Greek government said it will continue its own talks with Libya and announced emergency measures to address the surge in arrivals on the island of Crete.
Speaking to Greek media, Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis stressed that the Libya trip had been organized by the Commission and not by Athens. “There was an organizational bottleneck, which also led to a failure to adhere to diplomatic protocols,” he said.
In Rome, officials suggested Brussels should look into what went wrong. Italy’s Interior Minister, Matteo Piantedosi, who was on the trip, said: “It was a meeting canceled at the last minute due to resentment on the Libyan side over excessive zeal on the part of some officials in the European delegation.”
A spokesperson for the Commission said: “What happened in Benghazi was that there was a protocol issue. This is why it was not possible to carry out the planned meetings. The EU will maintain open channels of communication and we will continue working in a ‘team Europe’ approach with all actors involved.”
The debacle unfolded when the EU party visited the U.N.-recognized government in Tripoli, in western Libya, then arrived in Benghazi in the east, which is controlled by Russia-aligned warlord Khalifa Haftar.
The EU team insisted they wanted to talk to Haftar alone and declined meetings with other officials from the Benghazi government. But Haftar — who is a powerful and influential military figure but is not officially in charge of the civilian administration — wanted senior ministers and aides in the Benghazi government to join, too.