After Gaddafi

The future in Libya is extremely hard to predict and that, too, has been the ultimate triumph of the Gaddafi regime. It ensured that there should be no potential alternative and the legacy it bequeathes to the country it saw as the ultimate political laboratory will be chaos and uncertainty.

What can the European Union do to help such a difficult and uncertain birth of a new political system for Libya? Libyans will not welcome patronising advice, or predesigned schemata for economic and political reform. What they will need and welcome is technical advice on how to achieve their goals, not what those goals should be, together with the short-term financial support they will need to achieve them until the consequences of the current sanctions regime have disappeared.