Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
Cynthia Jacobs
The Eastern Mediterranean is becoming an increasingly important arena in the contest over maritime boundaries, energy security and regional influence. Turkey’s growing naval presence and its strategic partnership with Libya have strengthened Ankara’s position in this competition, giving it additional leverage over future gas projects, undersea infrastructure and the political calculations of neighbouring states. Yet describing Turkey as the “policeman of the Mediterranean” risks overstating its authority. Ankara can complicate regional projects and shape negotiations, but it cannot unilaterally determine the legal status of disputed waters or dictate the future of the region’s energy trade.
The latest development came on 20 October 2026, when Libya’s House of Representatives in Benghazi reportedly approved the maritime agreement with Turkey unanimously, reversing its earlier opposition to agreements with Ankara. The decision marks a significant political shift. A memorandum signed in November 2019 by Turkey and Libya’s former Government of National Accord had long been associated primarily with the authorities in Tripoli and their close relationship with Ankara. Broader support within Libya’s divided political landscape could strengthen Turkey’s negotiating position. It does not, however, settle the maritime dispute or eliminate objections from Greece, Egypt and other regional actors.
The distinction matters. The agreement is not a new maritime settlement simply because Libya’s eastern-based legislature has now endorsed it. Nor does parliamentary approval automatically resolve questions about Libya’s domestic constitutional procedures, the agreement’s compatibility with international maritime law, or its implications for the rights claimed by third countries. Registration of an agreement with the United Nations does not amount to international judicial approval of its legal validity. The political significance of the vote may be substantial, but its legal consequences must be assessed separately.
An agreement with consequences beyond Libya
Turkey and Libya signed their maritime memorandum on 27 November 2019, seeking to delineate areas of continental shelf and exclusive economic jurisdiction between the two countries. The arrangement was part of Ankara’s wider effort to defend what it considers its maritime interests and to challenge rival interpretations of the rights generated by Greek islands in the Eastern Mediterranean.
For Turkey, the agreement offers a diplomatic and strategic instrument. It strengthens Ankara’s claim that its maritime entitlements should not be restricted by interpretations that give extensive effect to islands near the Turkish coast. For Greece, the arrangement disregards the maritime rights of its islands, including Crete, and attempts to establish a boundary without Greek participation. Egypt has its own concerns, given its maritime interests, its 2020 delimitation agreement with Greece and its growing role in regional energy markets.
These positions are not merely expressions of longstanding political hostility between Ankara and its neighbours. They reflect a fundamental disagreement over how maritime entitlements should be calculated, how the rights of islands should be treated and how competing claims should be reconciled under international law.
Turkey argues that its position reflects equitable principles and rejects what it regards as disproportionate maritime claims based on Greek islands. Greece maintains that islands possess maritime entitlements under international law and that Turkey and Libya cannot reach a bilateral agreement that extinguishes Greek rights. Egypt, meanwhile, views the dispute through the lens of its own maritime jurisdiction, regional partnerships and energy strategy.
A bilateral agreement cannot, by itself, impose obligations on a state that is not a party to it. Nor can its registration with the United Nations settle competing claims or replace the legal processes through which disputes are resolved. The question is therefore not simply whether Libya and Turkey support the memorandum, but how far its provisions can be sustained against the competing rights and claims of other states.
The parliamentary vote nevertheless gives Ankara a potentially valuable political advantage. If rapprochement between Turkey and eastern Libyan authorities continues, the agreement may become a broader element of Libya’s foreign policy rather than an arrangement associated principally with one political camp. That would make it more difficult for future Libyan leaders to abandon the memorandum without a domestic political debate. It could also strengthen Turkey’s hand in any future negotiations over maritime boundaries, energy exploration and undersea infrastructure.
Could the agreement obstruct Eastern Mediterranean gas exports?
The agreement’s consequences for European energy security require a distinction between direct legal effects and indirect strategic pressure. It does not give Turkey authority over the entire Eastern Mediterranean, nor does it automatically prevent Israeli, Egyptian or Cypriot gas from reaching European markets. Its significance lies instead in the uncertainty it can introduce into projects that require seabed surveys, pipelines, electrical interconnectors or long-term investment in waters subject to competing maritime claims.
The proposed EastMed pipeline illustrates the problem. Designed to transport gas from Israel and Cyprus towards Greece and, potentially, wider European markets, the project has long faced substantial obstacles, including high construction costs, commercial uncertainty and geopolitical disputes. It has not become an operational export route. It would therefore be misleading to attribute its difficulties solely to the Turkish-Libyan agreement. The memorandum is one element in a broader environment of political and commercial risks that already complicates the project’s prospects.
Eastern Mediterranean gas exports do not depend on EastMed alone. Egypt has liquefaction facilities and infrastructure that can support exports to international markets, while its facilities have also played a role in processing and exporting Israeli gas. Future arrangements could allow Egyptian infrastructure to support exports from Cypriot fields as commercial production develops. The U.S. Energy Information Administration identified Egypt, as of July 2025, as the only country in the Eastern Mediterranean with liquefied natural gas export capacity.
This infrastructure gives regional governments alternatives to a single pipeline corridor. Yet alternatives do not eliminate the costs of uncertainty. A maritime dispute can delay exploration, complicate seabed surveys, raise insurance and financing costs, and make investors more reluctant to commit capital to projects with long construction periods and decades-long commercial obligations.
In the energy industry, a government does not need to formally prohibit a project to undermine its prospects. Persistent uncertainty may be sufficient to persuade companies to postpone investment, demand higher returns or choose a different route. Turkey’s influence may therefore be felt less through an outright blockade than through its capacity to alter the strategic and commercial calculations surrounding future projects.
The same logic extends to electricity infrastructure. The Great Sea Interconnector, intended to connect mainland Greece with Cyprus and potentially Israel, has encountered delays amid disagreements over maritime jurisdiction and project implementation. Reports in October 2026 indicated efforts to resume seabed survey work, while Turkey continued to assert maritime claims overlapping with areas associated with the proposed route. The dispute thus reaches beyond natural gas to the undersea infrastructure that Europe hopes will strengthen energy diversification and regional connectivity.
The central risk is not that Turkey can simply switch off Eastern Mediterranean energy exports. It is that unresolved disputes could make some of the region’s most ambitious projects slower, more expensive and less attractive to investors.
From geopolitical rivalry to legal confrontation
The Egyptian and Greek objections to the agreement reflect a combination of strategic rivalry and substantive legal disagreement. The two countries have sought to protect their maritime interests and strengthen their regional cooperation, including through their 2020 exclusive economic zone agreement. Ankara opposed that arrangement, just as Cairo and Athens have rejected the Turkish-Libyan memorandum.
For Greece, the treatment of islands is central. Athens argues that islands are entitled to maritime zones under international law, although the precise effect of an island on delimitation can depend on the circumstances of a particular case. Turkey disputes the extent to which Greek islands should constrain its maritime claims, especially where islands lie close to the Turkish mainland. The disagreement cannot be resolved simply by asserting that one country’s preferred map is self-evidently correct.
Egypt’s concerns are similarly rooted in maritime jurisdiction and regional energy interests. Its agreement with Greece established a framework for delimiting part of their respective exclusive economic zones, while the Turkish-Libyan memorandum advanced a competing approach to the geography of the Eastern Mediterranean. Cairo’s objection reflects its view that a bilateral arrangement between Ankara and Libyan authorities cannot determine Egypt’s rights.
These competing positions make the legal question more complex than the exchange of diplomatic statements suggests. Three issues must be considered separately: whether the agreement is valid between its parties; whether its delimitation is consistent with applicable international law; and whether it affects the rights of states that did not participate in its conclusion. Political endorsement in Libya may strengthen the agreement’s domestic standing, but it cannot by itself settle all three questions.
The dispute will ultimately require diplomacy, negotiation and, where the necessary legal conditions are met, appropriate mechanisms for peaceful dispute settlement. Until then, the agreement is likely to remain both a legal instrument and a political bargaining chip. Its significance will depend not only on its written provisions, but also on how Ankara, Tripoli, Benghazi, Athens and Cairo choose to use it.
Turkey’s influence has limits
Turkey’s expanding maritime role is real, but the “policeman of the Mediterranean” label exaggerates what Ankara can accomplish. Turkey has a long coastline, substantial naval capabilities and a strategic interest in the waters surrounding its southern and western approaches. Its relationship with Libya gives it another channel through which to influence discussions about offshore exploration and maritime infrastructure. None of these advantages amounts to uncontested authority over the Eastern Mediterranean.
Other states retain their own military capabilities, legal claims, economic interests and diplomatic partnerships. Greece and Egypt are unlikely to abandon their positions simply because Libya’s eastern-based legislature has endorsed the memorandum. European governments also have a stake in preventing disputes over maritime boundaries from becoming recurring threats to energy projects and regional stability.
The evolving relationship between Ankara and eastern Libya is nevertheless noteworthy. Turkey was a key supporter of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord during Khalifa Haftar’s offensive against the capital in 2019 and 2020. In subsequent years, contacts between Ankara and authorities in eastern Libya developed despite the earlier political and military divide. The latest parliamentary decision suggests that past antagonisms no longer prevent both sides from exploring areas of mutual interest.
That rapprochement could create opportunities for Turkish economic and security engagement in eastern Libya. But it would be premature to treat approval of the maritime agreement as evidence that a major expansion of Turkey’s military presence is inevitable. Such a development would depend on additional political and security decisions, while Libya’s institutional fragmentation remains a significant constraint on the durability of any national commitment.
For Libya, the strategic calculation is especially delicate. The agreement may provide a basis for asserting maritime interests and pursuing a greater role in regional energy development. Yet it could also entangle the country more deeply in disputes among external powers, particularly if maritime policy becomes another point of contention between rival Libyan institutions.
Libya’s long-term interest is not served simply by endorsing or rejecting an agreement with Turkey. It depends on establishing a clear legal position, ensuring that national institutions can speak with authority, and negotiating from a coherent understanding of the country’s economic and strategic interests. Without that domestic foundation, even a potentially valuable international agreement can become an extension of internal political division.
Europe’s energy dilemma
For Europe, the challenge is how to manage competing maritime claims without allowing energy diversification to become a vehicle for regional confrontation. The Eastern Mediterranean offers opportunities to develop gas resources, improve electricity connectivity and deepen commercial cooperation. But such ambitions require political predictability and sustained coordination among governments, companies and regulators.
A strategy based primarily on reciprocal pressure may strengthen individual negotiating positions in the short term while weakening the prospects for regional cooperation over time. Delays to pipelines, electricity cables and offshore exploration can raise costs for investors and reduce the commercial value of resources that governments hope to bring to market. The consequences are not confined to the states directly involved in the maritime dispute; they can also affect Europe’s broader energy planning.
European policymakers therefore face a difficult balance. They must take the legal claims of Greece, Cyprus and other regional partners seriously while recognising that Turkey remains a major regional power whose cooperation or opposition can influence the practical development of maritime infrastructure. Durable progress will require more than diplomatic declarations or attempts to impose a political fait accompli. It will require credible legal processes, technical coordination and incentives for states to pursue negotiated outcomes.
The October parliamentary vote in Libya adds another dimension to that challenge. It could make the Turkish-Libyan memorandum more politically entrenched and strengthen Ankara’s position in future talks. But it could also create an opportunity for a broader discussion about maritime boundaries, investment protections and the sharing of economic benefits.
The question is whether regional governments will use the agreement to reopen negotiations or treat it as a mechanism for consolidating competing claims. The first approach offers at least a path towards practical accommodation. The second risks prolonging uncertainty and making infrastructure projects hostages to geopolitical rivalry.
A new bargaining position, not a new maritime order
Libya’s endorsement of the maritime memorandum strengthens Turkey’s political position, but it does not redraw the Eastern Mediterranean by itself. The agreement reinforces a contested set of maritime claims and gives Ankara an additional instrument in its competition with Greece, Egypt and other regional actors. It does not confer unilateral legal authority over the sea, nor does it automatically halt gas exports or determine the future of European energy infrastructure.
The deeper significance lies in the relationship between geography, law and power. Turkey can use its maritime capabilities and partnership with Libya to shape the environment in which regional projects are negotiated. But influence is not the same as control, and the ability to complicate a project is not the same as possessing the legal right to prevent it.
The ultimate test will be whether the agreement becomes a starting point for wider negotiations or a means of entrenching the status quo. The Eastern Mediterranean has the potential to serve as a corridor for energy, electricity and economic cooperation. It can also become a theatre in which unresolved disputes impose costs on every country involved.
For Libya, the priority should be to protect its interests through coherent national institutions and a defensible legal position. For Turkey, the challenge is to turn strategic leverage into durable regional influence rather than persistent confrontation. For Europe, the lesson is that energy security cannot be secured through infrastructure alone. It also depends on resolving the political disputes that can turn the sea from a route of economic opportunity into an arena of open-ended competition.
