The European Parliament and the conflict in Libya (2011): an efficient moral platform?

The actions of the European Parliament with respect to the internal crisis in Libya and the international interventions carried out in the country in 2011 contradict the widely-held perception of the European Union’s passivity concerning the events of the Arab Spring. Previously, the Parliament had been the Brussels institution that had been relatively the most critical of Muamar el Gadafi’s regime. In the context of the violent repression of the protests in that year, the EU took on a role as an effective moral platform and showed great consensus in calling for international intervention based on the doctrine of the «responsibility to protect». This confirms the hypothesis that the parlamentarisation of international relations encourages the introduction of regulatory elements far from the traditional premises and prescriptions of realism.

Key words: Libya, European Parliament, EU, conflict, responsibility to protect

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