EU calls the Turkish–Libyan memorandum “null and void”: Costa and von der Leyen express solidarity with Greece and Cyprus

The European Union calls the Turkish–Libyan memorandum “null and void” and expresses its solidarity with Greece and Cyprus, in a joint statement by European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The statement was posted on the evening of Tuesday, October 20 on the X accounts of von der Leyen and Costa, hours after Libya’s House of Representatives approved the memorandum.

“We express deep regret at the ratification today by the Libyan House of Representatives of the so-called Memorandum of Understanding between Libya and Türkiye on the delimitation of maritime jurisdictions in the Mediterranean Sea,” the two presidents said. “We recall that the EU’s position on this matter was clearly stated by the European Council in 2019 and remains unchanged.”

“It violates the sovereign rights of third states”

“This agreement infringes the sovereign rights of third states, does not comply with the Law of the Sea and is null and void,” the statement continues. “We reaffirm our solidarity with Greece and Cyprus. We reiterate the EU’s well-known position against any external interference in Libya.”

The conclusions of the European Council of December 12, 2019, to which the two presidents refer, said the memorandum “violates the sovereign rights of third States, does not comply with the Law of the Sea and cannot produce any legal consequences for third States”. The new statement goes a step further by explicitly calling the agreement “null and void”, the wording Athens and Nicosia also use.

Athens, Nicosia, Cairo

Earlier, the Greek Foreign Ministry had described the memorandum “spurious, null and void” and said it had informed partners and allies, while George Gerapetritis spoke by phone with his Cypriot and Egyptian counterparts. The Cypriot Foreign Ministry, in its own statement, condemned the decision of the Libyan parliament, saying the memorandum “violates the sovereign rights of third states” and the UNCLOS principles “on the rights of islands to maritime zones”. Athens had stressed that “geography and the international Law of the Sea are not changed by unilateral, legally unfounded parliamentary decisions” and that Turkey and Libya have no opposite or adjacent coasts. The vote followed the removal of Aguila Saleh as speaker of the House.