On May 27, 2025, Libya submitted to the United Nations its positions on the maritime delimitations in the Mediterranean Sea, accompanied by a map. The maritime area covered by the map concerns five of the 21 states in the region and corresponds to approximately 16% of the total surface of the Mediterranean. All the states concerned, in successive letters and verbal communications sent to the UN, disagreed with Libya (Malta, August 18, 2025; Greece, September 3, 2025; Egypt, September 8, 2025; Tunisia, April 19, 2026; Italy on May 26, 2026).
The most extreme Libyan views are expressed against Greece. They are influenced by the Turkish-Libyan memorandum of 2019 and defiantly ignore the presence of Greek islands in the region and primarily Crete. It is indicative that at some point the Libyan claims approached a distance of eight nautical miles from the coast of Crete. Since the autumn of 2025, discussions have begun between Athens and the officially recognized government of Libya in Tripoli on the delimitation of the maritime zones.
Without knowing the progress of these talks, it is assumed that it will be extremely difficult for Tripoli to either accept to delimit with Greece the area included in the Turkish-Libyan memorandum or to proceed with a bilateral judicial resolution of the entire delimitation with our country. Such a move would bring it into direct conflict with Turkey, on which it continues to depend militarily. Libya probably wishes to delimit only the western part that lies outside the memorandum. Such a delimitation obviously does not satisfy Greece because it will appear as an indirect acceptance of the legitimacy of the delimitation with Turkey to the east.
