German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/28, p.
2434.
Frau President. Valued colleagues. Ladies and gentlemen.
We debate today on a Bundeswehr mission which in many
regards is controversial. Irini is the successor operation of Operation Sophia
which in 2019 due to a dispute, particularly between Italy and Germany, needed
to be suspended.
Background for the suspension of Sophia was the dispute over
the mandate for rescue at sea of migrants which conflicted with another
mandate, namely halting the trafficking [Schleuser]
criminality. The Italian government at that time correctly pointed to the
contradiction of this mission stoking the trafficking activity, by which the
presence of the Sophia ships was included in the calculation of the
traffickers.
Ulrich Lechte (FDP): That is just rubbish!
A similar evaluation came from the British Parliament which
more than once designated the Sophia mission as failed.
A core mandate of the successor operation Irini now is the
implementation of the Security Council’s resolution for an arms embargo against
Libya. To a secondary mandate belongs the gaining of information on human
smuggling and on illegal exports of petroleum from Libya.
How does the balance of the mandate’s fulfillment now appear
after two years? Here for one is the unevenness in regards the enforcement of
the arms embargo. This is in flagrant contrast to the EU’s claim to guarantee
strict neutrality vis-à-vis the parties to the conflict. The elected government
of Libya criticizes that it is one-sidedly disadvantaged by the arms embargo at
sea, while the combatant Haftar may be supplied with weapons via land and air
connections. Among the supporters of the government side are found prominent
NATO partners, among whom are also three EU members. On the other side, Russia
and the Ukraine especially deliver considerable weapons systems to Haftar.
It is thus, ladies and gentlemen, not to be wondered that
the enforceability of Irini is close to nil. This is very clearly indicated by
multiple attempts to control ships commissioned by Turkey and under suspicion
of being underway in the transport of weapons in western Libya. Turkey
vehemently resists the searching of the ships, and succeeds in all cases. Only
one tanker with kerosene for eastern Libya was confiscated because it was
agreed that this was for military purposes instead of for allegedly civilian aviation.
Here we are at the keyword: The oil business, as everyone
knows, is the true background of the on-going conflict in Libya. The large
European oil firms are present and attain high profits. And both parties to the
conflict work profitably together in the oil business so that there exists
little interest in an alteration of the status quo.
Thus one must come to the evaluation that the mission in the
framework of Irini only very insufficiently, if at all, fulfills the mandated
commission. It is thus essentially a question of a show window mandate for the
EU so as to promote its security policy ambitions, GSVP [Common Security and
Defense Policy] and PESCO [Permanent Structured Cooperation].
Against the background of the present security policy
situation – and here I agree with Frau Minister Lambrecht – it would be far
more sensible and fitting to concentrate our navy’s expense of time and resources
on the core mandate of the Bundeswehr, namely the defense of the States and Bund,
primarily in the Baltic and the North Sea. We therefore regard this new mandate
Irini as superfluous.
Thank you for your attention.
[trans: tem]
