On 11 October, international media outlets reported that a joint delegation of migration officials from Tripoli and Benghazi will be in Europe from October 14 to 16 for a series of technical meetings with the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Home Affairs. The delegations are due to visit the Frontex headquarters in Warsaw, Poland on 14 October and then Brussels on 15 and 16 October.
This is believed to be the first time that officials aligned with the Libyan National Army (LNA) have been officially invited to Frontex, though delegations from both the Government of National Unity (GNU) and LNA were received in Brussels in February this year as part the joint EU-Libya technical mission on migration governance. These latest meetings are understood to be the continuation of that process. According to Irpi Media, the staff of EU Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner will meet with the Libyan delegation in Brussels.
The western delegation includes eight officials from the GNU Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs, the Libyan Coast Guard (Tripoli branch), and the General Administration for Coastal Security (Gacs). This is led by Mohammed Marhani, the commander of the Border Guard Agency, an agency of Tripoli’s Interior Ministry established in 2023. Marhani has close links to the Minister of Interior Emad Trabelsi and is the head of the technical committee on migration and border security. The eastern delegation consists of six representatives from the Department for Combating Illegal Immigration within the Ministry of Interior, the LNA Navy, and the LNA.