News Analysis: Italy facing new challenges from Libya, calling for int'l help

Libyan refugees are flooding Italy's shores, driving up energy prices, and possibly putting Italy at risk of a terror attack. But the Italian government does not have the manpower or resources to address the Libyan problems alone.

"The Libya issue is not just an Italian one," Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said after meeting with French President Francois Hollande in Paris on Tuesday. "It is a priority for Europe and for the Mediterranean, which cannot be a cemetery or a suburb, but the heart of our continent," he told a press briefing.

The relationship between Libya and Italy is an unusual one. Until 1943, the North African nation was an Italian colony for a generation. But even after that, Italian companies played a key role in developing Libya's oil and natural gas sector. At its peak, Italy derived nearly a third of its power from Libya and for years Italian prime ministers were stalwart allies of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's controversial and strong-armed leader, who ruled the country from 1969 to 2011.

In fact, even as the European Union's relations with Gaddafi turned sour during the so-called "Arab Spring" in 2011, Italy revived a special "friendship pact" with Gaddafi's Libya. After Gaddafi was deposed, Italy helped rebuild the Libyan oil and gas sector which had been crippled by war.

"Italy's deepest ties in Africa, for good or for bad, are with Libya and Libya's deepest ties in Europe are with Italy," Tomasso Sardo, an international affairs analyst with ABS Securities, told Xinhua.

Unfortunately for Italy, it's a relationship that has become strained in recent months.

Italy is suffering under an influx of African refugees, many of whom depart from Libya and land on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa to the south of Sicily.

Political instability in Libya is dramatically reducing oil and gas produced there, forcing Italy to look for alternative fuel sources on secondary markets and driving up prices.

And in recent weeks, the Islamic State (IS), also known as ISIS or ISIL, has begun threatening Italy from Libya, where they warned they were now "south of Rome."

Italy appears to be taking the threat seriously. Italy closed its embassy in Tripoli, Libya's capital, and Renzi immediately threatened military action. Within days however, Renzi backtracked, and soon after the Italian ministry of defense revealed Italy only had about 5,000 troops ready for deployment abroad.

"The idea that Italy would decide to attack unilaterally is ridiculous," Nathalie Tocci, deputy director of the Institute for International Affairs (IAI), an Italian think tank, said in an interview. "Who would they be fighting? What would the goal be? You can't just strike without understanding these questions."

Tocci said the goal in Libya should be stability, but she warned Italy shouldn't be the only European country upholding this aim. Renzi apparently agrees: he has been lobbying for the European Union or an international coalition to step up to help stabilize the country.

In addition to military readiness and a lack of an obtainable objective for Italy in Libya, the Italian government is too short of cash to fund any kind of sustained effort beyond its shores.

There are also political concerns. Renzi is backing an ambitious reform agenda that seeks to revamp the country's political and electoral systems, while also reducing the country's bloated public sector, streamlining the tax code, and sparking economic growth.

The in-pouring of refugees landing on Italy's shore is a challenge Renzi didn't expect when he became prime minister a year ago. Big problems in Libya would not be a welcome addition to the government's long list of major issues to confront.

"Obviously, Italian intelligence knows things we cannot know and will act on that," Sebastiano Sali, an Italian doctoral candidate with the war studies department at King's College in London, said in an interview. "But I can say the last thing Italy and Renzi need right now is a foreign policy crisis." Endit