Italy’s geopolitical ascendancy is prefigured around developing closer hydrocarbon ties to Libya in order to create an “enlarged Mediterranean” — the ultimate prize of Italian policy in North Africa.
Enrico Mattei is the industrialist credited with the 1953 inception of Italy’s Ente nazionale idrocarburi or Eni, for whom Giorgia Meloni’s Italian administration has named its “flagship” strategy for Africa. Speaking on the sixty-first anniversary of Mattei’s death in October 2023, Prime Minister Meloni lauded the “geopolitical projection” of the founder’s commercial strategy.
The stifled Libyan interventions of Meloni’s predecessors have been held up as an indicator of Italy’s diminished influence in the Mediterranean sphere. Notwithstanding, Rome’s newest venture into development diplomacy can advance its pull as a unilateral actor in the region.
Priorities for the Mattei Plan
The Mattei Plan contemplates a funding commitment of €5.5 billion, constituted by approximately €3 billion from the Italian Climate Fund and an additional €2.5 billion already allocated to development cooperation, to be applied through a variety of instruments including debt-for-development swaps and both public-private and multilateral initiatives, with pilot projects already underway in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco.
Since the Plan’s inception, its scope has been expanded, including covering additional sub-Saharan partner states. Rome has acknowledged the regional impact of stabilization in Libya and in December entered into a series of cooperation commitments with Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh’s Tripoli administration, However, as yet, no new commitments to the Libyan oil and gas sector, or the energy sector at large, have been announced.
Energy and pipeline security continue to top Rome’s list of policy priorities, particularly following Eni’s loss of access to Russian supply following the invasion of Ukraine. Nonetheless, the bulk of the Plan’s political value in Rome is derived from Italy’s function as a “gatekeeper” in the context of the European migratory crisis.
Meloni’s expectation that development diplomacy will alleviate migration pressures on the Republic has already been branded “inherently doomed to failure.”
But the conspicuous non-integration of the Plan with Europe’s own vehicles suggests itself an element of national branding. Indeed, to suggest “no success without Europe” would be to lose sight of Rome’s broader intention: to boost Italian geopolitical clout in Africa.
The omission of Libya from the Mattei Plan’s original portfolio can be seen as a repositioning of Italian policy in itself, as its former colony has been described as the fulcrum of Rome’s relations in the region.
Meloni’s Plan is not the only strategy to which the Eni founder’s name has been given. The corporation’s “75-25” approach, describing the traditional allocation of profits among the target resource state and Eni respectively, is credited with boosting Italian favor among North Africa’s young hydrocarbon regimes.
Eni remains Libya’s largest gas producer and produced eighty percent of its 2024 output, most of which was used to meet Italy’s domestic electricity needs. The Italian group has credited its partnership with the National Oil Corporation (NOC) as sustaining it through the rocky 2010s period. When, in August, the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) crisis resulted in Haftar’s Benghazi government threatening to hold hydrocarbon assets hostage pending concessions from the western Government of National Unity, facilities at Eni’s joint venture facilities in the Murzuq Elephant oilfield halted production, leading to a NOC declaration of force majeure in September. By October, however, Eni had recommitted to the field, announcing it would resume exploration drilling efforts in Elephant and beyond.
How the Mattei Plan Can Succeed in Libya
Beyond the context of the migratory crisis, Libya presents a unique opportunity. Italy was much more considered in its movements than its European Union (EU) allies with regard to the 2011 revolution, in part owing to Eni’s stake in the state. For the Mattei Plan to achieve its geopolitical aims, Rome cannot afford to be as hesitant in applying initiative in the new Libya.
The influence Rome already wields through Eni will be amplified. But as we have seen in the case of China, the soft power potential for investor states in energy goes beyond hydrocarbons. Mattei’s pilot projects include the development of training and innovation centers for renewables initiatives, but despite its significant solar photovoltaic (PV) and onshore wind capability, none of the Plan’s renewables initiatives target Libya. By committing to expand the Plan’s Libyan commitments into the renewable energy sector and including Libya in its “Roadmap to Connect Africa to Europe for Clean Energy Production,” Italy can consolidate its role in the state’s development.
Fluctuating gas feedstocks have led to a longstanding generation deficit in Libya. Intermediation in the electricity sector has been used by state and private actors to achieve long-term political aims, and Mattei’s Eni was adept in the area. In addition to committing to support renewable capacity, Meloni can cement Italy as a critical partner in the state’s energy makeup by combining the Plan’s template for human capital and training initiatives with increased action by Eni at the utility level in Libya. To the extent Libya succeeds in normalizing its grid on the basis of this support, Rome will have positioned itself as a driving force for energy development in North Africa.
In the ongoing dispute between Dbeibeh’s provisional government and the Haftar-backed House of Representatives, not to mention other interests on the ground, actors in the energy sector are also conflict actors. As the CBL dispute demonstrates, eastern Libya’s economic displacement is one of the chief obstacles to a political resolution in the country. By integrating a localized, supply-chain-linked conflict resolution structure into the Plan, Rome can adopt an environmental peace-building role. A Mattei resolution could take advantage of energy sector development as a natural incubator for collective identity.
Undoubtedly, the bumper-sticker reason for the Mattei Plan’s development diplomacy is Italy’s role in Europe’s migratory crisis. However, to merge the Plan with any multilateral initiative would be to the detriment of one of Rome’s broader motives. Beyond migration and energy security concerns, the Plan represents a force that can be used to build Italy’s geopolitical weight, and with it the “enlarged Mediterranean,” which serves as the ultimate prize of Italian policy in North Africa.
Tom Rhys Jones is an Associate in Vinson & Elkins’ Energy Transactions and Projects group based in London, focusing on the development and financing of large-scale energy and infrastructure projects, particularly in the North Africa and Gulf regions. His academic concerns focus on multilateralism, sanctions, and the politics of energy.
Image: Shutterstock/UniqueEye
