On Sunday 13 June Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, Foreign Minister Tonio Borg, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi together with representatives of Spain, Slovenia and Switzerland met up in Libyan Leader Col. Mu’Ammar Gaddafi’s tent in Tripoli Libya. The occasion was the signing of an agreement between Libya and Switzerland which brought to an end the visa issue which had been going on between them and which had also involved the EU States members of the Schengen zone, since February 2010.
This visa issue had many innuendos and significances but for Libya the issue meant the exercising of an intelligent and fine diplomatic stance. Libya has recently, and more than once, come up with instances where it has shown that it could cope with adverse circumstances. Libya has also showed that it is capable of switching ideological rhetoric to suit changed international circumstances and turning situations into its favour. Libyan Leader Col. Mu’Ammar Gaddafi has relentlessly proven that he is a master of that school of negotiation, where each response is stalled, attention is paid so as not to slip backward and the issue is pushed forward until the overall objective is achieved.
When earlier on this year in February, Switzerland created a visa blacklist for 188 high-ranking Libyan personnel including Libyan Leader Mu’Ammar Gaddafi and his family, it never imagined that it was creating a diplomatic incident which was to escalate both in duration and proportion. Switzerland must surely have underrated the astuteness of Libyan diplomacy and never expected Libyan Leader Mu’Ammar Gaddafi to react with such a great impact as to rope in all the EU states into the issue by refusing visa entry permits to citizens from EU countries forming part of the Schengen zone.
Through this type of reaction Libyan diplomacy created a situation that had affected all the commercial and industrial activity between Libya and the counties involved. The action brought to a standstill all activities of a commercial nature as well as construction ventures. Most investment and agreements in the pipeline also had to stop and be put off as personnel involved could not enter Libya. With regards to Malta it had affected local companies and local workers and as an offshoot, it had also affected Colonel Gaddafi’s planned visit to the island.
Relations between Switzerland and Libya had started to become taut when the Libyan Leader’s son Hannibal and his pregnant wife were arrested in Switzerland after a row with servants at a luxury hotel. They had been released two days later but Libya had retaliated by arresting two Swiss nationals, Rachid Hamdani, an employee of a Swiss construction Company and Max Goeldi, an employee of Swiss engineering firm ABD and sentenced them to jail on conviction of immigration offences. Libya also recalled its diplomats from the country, retracted its money out of Swiss vaults and interrupted oil shipments to Switzerland. Libya also asked for compensation for the arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi. Another case which, although not actually a problem between Switzerland and Libya, was the case of the Swiss referendum in favour of prohibiting the building of more Islamic Minarets on Swiss soil which Libya being an Islamic country took as an affront. And then came the visa prohibition by Switzerland for the Libyan Leader, his family and Libyan high-ranking officials.
All problems between two countries can have the potential to escalate into serious matters but some incidents escalate as soon as they are created. Refusing a visa to a head of State is surely one of the latter. Refusing a visa to an ordinary citizen is one thing, refusing a visa to the leader of another country is altogether another matter. Diplomatic affairs are always very delicate matters and countries tend to tread very carefully and try their utmost not to create diplomatic incidents because they know that repercussions could be quiet serious. The diplomatic system has various methods and channels through which relative correspondence and discussion can be taken up step by step before reaching an ultimate decision.
It seems that this was not the case in the hasty decision by Swiss authorities to refuse a visa to Colonel Mu’Ammar Gaddafi. This refusal was not only a refusal of a simple visa but an affront to the head of a state. A country’s authorities were telling a leader of another country, bluntly, that he was not welcome to come into their country. It is understandable that such a personage feels offended and reacts. And Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi reacted in such a way that he managed to involve all the other member states of the European Union in its conflict with Switzerland. Libya declared that entry visas will not be given to citizens of EU countries involved in the Schengen scheme of which Switzerland, though not a member of the EU, is also an associate. In this way Libya had recognised the effectiveness of the Schengen scheme and at the same time the widespread impact that would result if the Scengen zone would somehow be impaired from being effective.
It was also obvious that through this strong move Libya wanted to show its intention of striving to push the EU member states into action against Switzerland’s unilateral decision.
Libya’s decision to prohibit the issue of visas to visitors from the Schengen area had immediately affected a lot of international companies and workers involved in the immense development that is going on in that country. It was natural that those involved felt distressed and occupied because daily they were losing big money. But it should have been also obvious that all those involved would have immediately reacted by condemning Switzerland’s undiplomatic decision and by pledging to do their utmost to help solve the conflict.
Not one of the EU member states raised an eye when Switzerland came out with this unilateral decision, no one that is, except for Malta and Italy. When knowing how Libya has become a leading venture for investment by all countries members of the European Union and how most of these countries have already gained a lot from commercial transactions with Libya, it was strange and extraordinary to discover that these same countries did not come forward, when it came to defend Libya against Switzerland’s decision.
On the other hand Malta and Italy immediately criticised Switzerland’s action, accusing the Swiss of abusing the Schengen visa system and even managed to hold a meeting between them and the Libyan Foreign Affairs Minister in Rome. Later, this condemnation of the Swiss action was also endorsed by France and Spain, Slovenia and Portugal. Malta, on her part, sustaining that the Schengen agreement should not be used for political purposes, started issuing Malta only visas for Libyan nationals and proposed that Italy, Spain, France and Portugal do the same. This proposal received the support of Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Greece, Spain and also Cyprus although this country isn’t a Schengen Area country. On her part, Libya said that it would consider the issuing of such limited Schengen visas as a satisfactory solution. Malta played a primary role in the issue.
In the meantime, Libya had started to allow pockets of workers from Malta and Italy to enter the country but kept strong on the main issue of the visa problem, calling on Switzerland to withdraw its visa blacklist while stressing that the Schengen rules should not have been used in this way by Switzerland. Then suddenly late on Saturday 27 March, the news came out that Libya had dropped the ban on visas to nationals from countries members of the Schengen zone after the EU Spanish Presidency had announced that the EU was doing the same with Libyan nationals, and after Switzerland had offered to lift the blacklist to unlock the stalemate with Libya.
Libyan diplomacy had again won the day. Not only, but Spain which at the time held the rotating presidency of the EU, declared that it “deplored problems caused for Libyans on the Schengen area blacklist imposed by Switzerland which caused a diplomatic rift with the energy-rich North African country. This measure (the blacklist) was taken by a member of Schengen, not by the EU, which played no role in this. We are sorry and deplore what happened and the problems caused to Libyan citizens”. This statement in itself was a certificate for Libyan measures as effected during the impasse and for Libya’s shrewd diplomacy.
Then finally the actual problem between Libya and Switzerland was solved when Swiss Foreign Affairs Minister Michelin Calmy-Rey went to Tripoli on Sunday 13 June and signed an agreement which included the release by Libya of Swiss businessman Max Goeldi who had been held in Libya for the past two years and which ended the whole visa issue.