Remarks by High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini at the press conference on Libya

Thank you.

Let me give you a short update on the fact that we had all the 28 EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs plus the ones of Defence connected with Tripoli in a video conference with Prime Minister [Fayez] al-Sarraj who shared with us his assessment on the political, security and economic situation of the country and

we also started discussing the priorities in terms of our support to the Libyan authorities in different fields.

We have also adopted some Council conclusions in which we welcome the arrival of the Presidency Council in Tripoli; we underline the Libyan ownership of the political process and the importance of it to be inclusive and we reaffirm our readiness to support the Government of National Accord (GNA) at its request in different fields.

We reiterated that the European Union considers the GNA as the sole legitimate government in Libya and among other things, we urge the House of Representatives and other institutions to fulfil the roles assigned to them under the Libyan Political Agreement.

We reiterated our commitment to provide a package of immediate and substantial measures in support of the GNA and the Libyan people totalling €100m in a number of different areas as I mentioned to you before and that we are also ready to help the GNA in managing migration and asylum, in close coordination with UNHCR and IOM.

We are also ready to offer security sector support in response to possible GNA requests, including possible civilian CSDP mission that could support Libyan effortsinter alia through advice and capacity building in the fields of police and criminal justice including on counter-terrorism, border management, countering irregular migration and smuggling of migrants and trafficking of human beings, as part of broader Security Sector Reformsupport.

This possible mission could draw upon the existing planning capacity of EUBAM Libya that as you know has been there for quite some time. In addition to the possible civilian mission, further consideration will also be given to support that can be provided through [EUNAVFOR MED] Operation Sophia, by enhancingits capacity to disrupt the business model of human smugglers and trafficking networksand to contribute to broader security in support to the legitimate Libyan authorities, for example through possible capacity building for the Libyan Coastguards. Let me also stress that we reiterated that we will ensure that all our support is guaranteeing full Libyan ownership — this is an issue that we stressed very much with Prime Minister [Fayez] al-Sarraj and will be coordinated and coherent with other international support under the overall coordination of UNSMIL. We know very well that we need not only to guarantee that the support is given, but also to support that it is given in a coordinated way. I will stop here. You will see the full Council Conclusions text in a few moments and I will take maybe one question or two.