'The only difference': The ghost of Gaddafi is hovering over the European refugee crisis

Reuters

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (R) holds hands with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a meeting in Sirte, 600 km (370 miles) east of Tripoli, March 2, 2009.

There's a tragically ironic subtext to Europe's refugee crisis, which is becoming increasingly problematic as the war in Syria rages.

Turkey has become the prime entry point for hundreds of thousands of Syrians making their way to Europe, and Italy's navy continues to rescue thousands of refugees off Libya's coast.

And now that the refugee influx has intensified, Italy can no longer count on a key ally who helped stem the flow in the past: Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who died in 2011 after being ousted by a NATO-backed revolution.

"The EU has never wanted to take those people in. The only difference is that before we were paying Gaddafi so we didn't have to deal with them," Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King's College, told Business Insider.

Menon added that the EU's recent announcement that it would start cracking down on the deportation of people who do not qualify for asylum is a "clearly politically motivated" move in line with Europe's longstanding foreign policies.

In 2009, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and Gaddafi signed an agreement that Italy would pay Libya $5 billion over 25 years as a repayment for its occupation of Libya in the first half of the 20th century.

What Italy got out of the deal, besides strengthening its energy ties with the African country, was clear: Libya would crack down on the migrants trying to cross into Europe.

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A year later, Humans Rights Watch (HRW) published a report blasting Italy for the deal and its treatment of the people trying to reach its shores. The report said conditions in migrants' detention camps across Libya "generally qualify as inhuman and degrading" and that migrants and refugees often undergo "brutal treatment."

Meanwhile, the HRW report said, Italy blocked people from entering the country without any regard for whether they would qualify as refugees.

The agreement falls apart

Shortly after the beginning of the Libyan civil war in February 2011, Italy suspended the "friendship deal" it had with Libya as the agreement included a non-aggression clause. That meant Italy would not allow its territory to be used as base for any military action against the African country.

A few weeks later, as Gaddafi desperately tried to hold on to power, he told French media, "There are millions of blacks who could come to the Mediterranean to cross to France and Italy, and Libya plays a role in security in the Mediterranean."

REUTERS/Marina Militare/Handout via Reuters

Migrants sit in a boat during a rescue operation by Italian navy off the coast of the south of the Italian island of Sicily in this November 28, 2013 picture provided by the Italian Marina Militare. About 350 migrants, who were traveling in four separate boats were rescued on Thursday in the operation called Mare Nostrum, Italian navy said. Picture taken November 28.

The Italian government managed to renew the agreement with the Libyan National Transitional Council in April 2012, even though the European Court of Human Rights found just a few months earlier that Italy had violated migrants' rights by sending them back to Libya.

But Libya has continued its descent into chaos since the deal was renewed, and it seems clear Italy may no longer be able to count on the country to help keep out the influx of refugees.

"I am not aware of any concrete cooperation projects [between Italy and Libya] beyond 2013," Matteo de Bellis, a researcher for Amnesty International on the European Union team, told Business Insider.

The ongoing turmoil in Libya and the fact that Italian coast guards have been rescuing migrants at sea rather than sending them back suggests that at least some tenets of the agreement are not implemented anymore.

Europe's answer is 'not good enough' for Italy

For months, Italy has been at the forefront of the refugee crisis in Europe and, along with Greece, has been pressing Northern European countries to help. Amid waves of refugees, many of them fleeing Syrian regime barrel bombs, other European countries did nothing, and when they realized the magnitude of the crisis, they did too little.

As Europe faces its worse migration crisis since World War II, the response shows one crucial vulnerability at the heart of the union: The countries have not been able after months of struggling to decide on one common response.

REUTERS/Yves Herman

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L), British Prime Minister David Cameron (C) and French President Francois Hollande (R) take part in a meeting at the European Union leaders summit in Brussels, October 15, 2015.

Germany's leading party and its Bavarian counterparts recently agreed to create transit zones through which asylum seekers would need to go before entering the country. Those with virtually no chance of gaining asylum will have to go back. And the UK appeals court just backed a "deport first, appeal later" policy.

But the only two coordinated responses the EU has issued on the matter so far have been a resettlement of 160,000 refugees - 710,000 have entered the bloc so far this year - and an announcement that it would step up the deportation of people who do not qualify for asylum.

"This is a very political move," Menon told Business Insider.

"Leaders can now go home and will get brownie points. They can say 'look at what I've done - we will be sending some home.'"

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Syrian and Afghan refugees fall into the sea after their dinghy deflated some 100m away before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos

Indeed, Italy has been highly critical of Europe's response. Addressing the Italian parliament on Wednesday, Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said that the European Union had to reassess its response to the refugee crisis.

"On the issue of migration, Italy was right, and the rest of Europe was not ... From the first day, we have said it was time to change EU policy on these issues," Renzi said.

He emphasized that the crisis "should not be underestimated."

"Let me be clear, Europe's answers so far have not been good enough," Renzi added.

In June, Italy had already asked the European Union to set up processing camps in Libya as the country struggled to deal with the unending wave of migrants coming in from Africa. Renzi also said that if Europe failed to act, they had a mysterious plan B ready.

"But it would first and foremost hurt Europe," Renzi said, according to the AFP.

Business Insider reached out to the Italian government for comment and will update this post with any comment we receive.