[Portrait] An Italian will take the lead of the EUBAM Libya mission

(B2) The EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) in Libya (finally) has a new head, Natalina Cea

The COPS ambassadors endorsed this choice this Thursday (14.01). The Italian will succeed on February 1st her compatriot Vincenzo Tagliaferri, in office since September 1st, 2016, who finished his task on October 30th.

An expected but postponed decision

This decision had been expected for several months (read Booklet 02.10.2020). But she dragged on. As the applications do not seem to be up to standard, a new call for applications has been relaunched (read Notebook 26.10.2020). Without result apparently. Since the initial candidate was finally selected. This appointment reflects a subtle gender balance as in the nationalities of the different heads of mission in the Sahel-North Africa region (read also: A woman takes the helm of the EUCAP Sahel Niger mission).

A specialist in Italian cooperation

A graduate of the University of Ancona and Cassino, Natalina was the head of the European Commission mission in Albania (CAM-Albania) from June 1997 to February 2000. She was then director of the public investment evaluation council of the Molise region (southern Italy), from May 2000 to March 2004. Director of technical assistance and international cooperation at the Italian customs agency (March 2005 - 2015), she leads a pilot project of the Ministry of Labor on the insertion and monitoring of Albanian immigrants in the labor market.

From Rafah to the CPCC

In July 2015, she took charge of the advisory mission on border surveillance in Palestine (EUBAM Rafah) then takes the head of the regional coordination cell (RCC) in the Sahel, based in Brussels. She will then be assigned to the CPCC, the civilian mission command of the PSDC.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

A mission waiting

Launched on May 22, 2013, the EUBAM Libya mission never managed to get off the ground. Officially responsible for supporting the Libyan authorities to “ dismantle organized criminal networks involved in migrant smuggling, human trafficking and terrorism ", she had to face numerous trips back and forth between deployments and withdrawals (to Tunis or Europe), depending on security tensions. The absence of reliable Libyan interlocutors and the Europeans' hesitations about the real objective of the mission produced a result close to zero. Natalina Cea's task will therefore be vital, while the UN is considering a ceasefire system (read: Observing the ceasefire in Libya. A mechanism rather than a mission).

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