{"id":468741,"date":"2026-10-21T14:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T12:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/10\/21\/accordo-turchia-libia-sul-mediterraneo-orientale-la-condanna-dellue-sempre-piu-in-rotta-con-ankara\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T14:32:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T12:32:30","slug":"turkey-libya-eastern-mediterranean-deal-draws-eu-condemnation-deepening-rift-with-ankara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/10\/21\/turkey-libya-eastern-mediterranean-deal-draws-eu-condemnation-deepening-rift-with-ankara\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey-Libya Eastern Mediterranean deal draws EU condemnation, deepening rift with Ankara"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The Libya-Turkey bilateral protocol on maritime borders has opened a rift in relations with the EU. The governments in Benghazi and Ankara have signed an agreement to resolve their dispute over conflicting claims to maritime borders and rights to explore energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean. However, Greece, Cyprus and Egypt are challenging the agreement<\/strong>. The Turkish-Libyan deal is said to disregard the maritime rights of other states and the Greek islands, and to establish a delimitation line that does not comply with the principles of international law of the sea. <\/p>\n

The initiative has burst onto the European Union\u2019s agenda. Late yesterday evening (20 October), the President of the European Council, Ant\u00f3nio Costa, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, issued a joint statement condemning the deal<\/a>. “This agreement infringes upon the sovereign rights of third states, it does not comply with the Law of the Sea, and is null and void,<\/strong>\u201d said the presidents of the two EU institutions, who are taking aim at the governments of the two partner countries.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Two Libyan governments, the same Erdogan: the EU\u2019s Turkish dilemma<\/h4>\n
 The issue of the Turkish-Libyan agreement is actually more complex than it appears. There are two rival governments in Libya: the Government of National Unity (GNA), based in Tripoli and led by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and recognised by the UN. The second is the Government of National Stability (GNS), based in Benghazi and led by General Khalifa Haftar. It is with this second government that the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, reached agreements on the division of the eastern Mediterranean.
With this move, Turkey has taken action contrary to international law, infringing upon the rights and interests of independent and sovereign EU Member States, and legitimising the eastern government of Libya \u2013 a government that is not recognised and which is in breach of the UN\u2019s position. Turkey, an EU partner and NATO member, is therefore acting in a manner that defies all conventional logic, posing a new existential challenge for the EU.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Khal\u012bfa Belq\u0101sim \u1e24aftar, head of the Libyan Government of National Stability (GSN), which is not recognised by the UN [photo: SalimIRQ\/Wikimedia Commons]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the EU recognises the government of national unity<\/a>, Turkey effectively recognises the Benghazi-based government, which in itself is already making EU-Turkey dialogue on Libya difficult. These are significant differences for a European Union that is seeing its dialogue with Ankara become increasingly complicated.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

EU without reliable partners in a world without rules<\/h4>\n
Donald Trump\u2019s United States has severed ties with the United Nations, declared war on the International Criminal Court<\/a>, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) through unilateral tariffs<\/a>, and has moved closer to Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has placed the Jewish state at the centre of allegations of war crimes and genocide in Gaza<\/a>; Libya, which is theoretically an ally of the EU in the fight against illegal immigration, has now joined the list of “friends” who are dismantling the world order and imposing unilateralism.<\/div>\n
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi<\/strong>, a Greek MEP from the EPP, opened the European Parliament\u2019s plenary session in Strasbourg with a statement calling on the Commission and the Council to speak out against the Turkish-Libyan protocol on the eastern Mediterranean. This presents a new challenge for the EU, which appears to be under attack from countries once regarded as partners but no longer seen as such.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erdo\u011fan has reached an agreement with the Libyan government in the east, while the European Union recognises the Tripoli-based government. The Turkish-Libyan agreement disregards the maritime borders of Greece and Cyprus and breaches international law<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":468720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[34191,31711,28376,26746,33394],"class_list":["post-468741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-confini","tag-libia-en-2","tag-mediterranean-en","tag-turkey-en-2","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":468742,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468741\/revisions\/468742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}