Last Friday, the German Bundestag tightened asylum laws and implemented a controversial EU asylum law. The reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) aims to reduce the number of people fleeing to Europe and staying here. To achieve this, the EU must cooperate with countries outside Europe. Internal documents, which we are publishing for the first time, show how far the member states are willing to go in this regard.
When the EU interior ministers meet in Brussels on Thursday, they could decide to cooperate with a warlord. This is according to a document prepared for the meeting. The EU and its member states are planning „structured, in-depth cooperation“ with eastern Libya.
The eastern part of the country is controlled by General Khalifa Haftar. Until now, cooperation with him has been unthinkable. In his sphere of influence, he allows people to be tortured, abused and disappeared, as documented by the human rights organisation Amnesty International in 2022. Haftar’s government is not internationally recognised. Close cooperation with the EU would amount to a political upgrade. The preparatory document we are publishing shows that Germany supports this plan. When asked, the Federal Ministry of the Interior declined to comment.
Once unthinkable, now migration policy
A key refugee route to Europe runs through Libya. Since the fall of dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011, the country has been deeply divided. In the west, around the city of Tripoli, there is a government recognised by the United Nations, with which the EU has been cooperating for years. The east, around the city of Benghazi, is controlled by Haftar and his network of armed militias, as in a surveillance state.
One of the militias under Haftar’s son intercepts asylum seekers in the Mediterranean. They shoot at the small boats, beat the people involved and finally bring them back to Libya, as Der Spiegel investigated in 2023. At the time, the EU Commission denied any contact with the militia. Cooperation with eastern Libya was generally considered politically inconceivable. Now it seems to be part of European migration policy.
EU wants to train the eastern Libyan coast guard
The background to this is that the escape route across the Mediterranean has shifted. While the coast guard of the recognised government in the west is increasingly intercepting boats on their way to Italy, crossings are shifting to the east of the country. From there, more than ten thousand people a year attempt to reach the Greek island of Crete in simple rubber dinghies, covering the 350-kilometre-long and life-threatening route.
The fact that the coast guard in the west has become so strong also has to do with the EU and its military mission Irini. The EU confirms this in one of the documents we are publishing. The escape route has shifted due to the measures taken by European states.
(SCIFA) am 12. Februar 2026
The Irini military mission was established in early 2020 after the Libya conference in Berlin under then-Chancellor Angela Merkel. The aim was to end the civil war there by having European soldiers monitor that no more weapons were being delivered to the country. Meanwhile, soldiers from EU member states are also training the coast guard in the west of the country. It intercepts boats carrying asylum seekers and returns them to western Libya before they reach European waters.
This is now apparently what is to happen in eastern Libya as well. According to another previously unpublished document on the current status of the military mission, money from Brussels is also to be used to build a maritime rescue coordination centre in the eastern part of the country, known as a Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC). EU soldiers are also to train the coast guard in eastern Libya together with their counterparts in the west.
Haftar’s relationship with Russia
Another reason for the EU’s rapprochement with Haftar is likely to be his close ties to Russia. The Kremlin has been supporting Haftar’s troops for years. Since the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, Libya has been considered strategically important for Putin in the Mediterranean region. There is therefore growing concern in Brussels that Russia could deliberately use migration as a means of exerting pressure on Europe.
EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner called for negotiations with Haftar as early as the summer of 2025. He said that the EU was very concerned about Russia’s growing influence. There is a danger that Moscow could ‘exploit’ the migration issue. According to intelligence services, asylum seekers are to be flown to Libya via Russia’s partner Belarus in order to put pressure on the EU.
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