Ocean Viking: more than a year later, the EU is still waiting for Libya to explain the coast guard’s attack

Brussels – The Libyan coastguard fired on the Ocean Viking; after more than a year, the European Commission is still waiting for Libya to respond, or at least to say something. In Brussels, they wait patiently, and the little that is said is said only because they are forced to. It is MEP Özlem Demirel (the Left), who, in a parliamentary question, presses for a response. However, no response has arrived because, as the Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Suica, calmly admits, as of 3 September 2026, “The EU has not yet received formally the final findings of internal investigations concerning the incident.” 

The subject of the parliamentary question concerns events that took place over a year ago, on 25 August 2025, and on which the European Commission chose from the outset not to comment, preferring to have concrete evidence and facts before expressing an opinion. Documents and evidence which have not yet reached Brussels, despite Suica’s assurance that the incident involving the Ocean Viking vessel was “discussed during the EU’s regular technical exchanges with the Libyan authorities, the latest of which took place in early July 2026.”  

The EU is therefore trying to stand its ground. Still, one wonders whether the Tripoli government is truly a reliable negotiating partner and whether the College of Commissioners is actually exerting any pressure. This is because the response provided by the Commissioner for the Mediterranean points out that the Libyan coastguard opening fire on the Ocean Viking is an incident that forms part of the Italy–Libya Memorandum of Understanding the fight against irregular migration, and, as Suica points out, “The memorandum of understanding between Italy and the Libyan Tripoli Government is a bilateral arrangement between Italy and the Libyan authorities.” This means that “the Commission is not a party to that memorandum and therefore it is neither responsible for monitoring compliance with its provisions nor for any enforcement or penalty mechanisms it may contain.“