The first conference, convened in January 2020, aimed to promote a ceasefire in the conflict over Tripoli and forge a roadmap to enable the creation of a new interim executive to manage the country until parliamentary and presidential elections were held by December 2021.

Despite the progress that has been made since then, there remain sharp differences between the main Libyan stakeholders over the steps that need to be taken to hold the elections. There is a strong chance that the second Berlin Conference could yield substantial changes in the Berlin roadmap in order to avert failure and a possible slide back into war.

It took over half a year after Berlin I for the parties to reach a ceasefire. Once it took hold, the UN sponsored the creation of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF), an assembly of representatives of different components of Libyan society charged with forming the new executive.

After a series of meetings in Tunis and Geneva from November 2020 through the first months of this year, the LPDF succeeded in creating a new Libyan Presidency Council and a new Government of National Unity (GNU) and in reunifying the divided Libyan House of Representatives (HoR). The reunified parliament convened in March to give a vote of confidence to the new government, although its members are still at odds over the measures in the roadmap.

In order for elections to go ahead as planned on 24 December, Libyan lawmakers and other decision-makers still need to agree on the budget for the new executive authority, fill several key offices, approve the legal basis for the elections and draw up the electoral laws for the parliamentary and presidential elections.

One camp is also insisting on a constitutional referendum before the elections are held. Some security-related steps also have to be taken to ensure a safe climate for the elections, among them unifying the military and security establishments, securing the coastal road between Sirte and Misrata, and removing all foreign fighters and mercenaries from the country, as stipulated by the ceasefire agreement between members of the UN-sponsored Joint Libyan Military Committee in Geneva last autumn.

Differences over such issues are not limited to the Libyan stakeholders. Some of the regional and international participants in the Berlin Conference in 2020 are advancing particular views on the disputed questions and on the order of priorities.

In order to cap the tensions and to keep the tangle of local and foreign interests from throttling the political process, Germany in partnership with the UN has called for the second Berlin Conference to be held on 23 June. The agenda will focus on three main issues: the elections, withdrawing mercenaries and foreign military advisers and forces, and creating a unified Libyan security force.

Meanwhile, the HoR and the High Council of State (HCS) have been unable to settle their differences on the legal basis for the elections that the LPDF legal committee submitted for approval last month. Fifty-one members of the 200-member HoR and 91 members of the 145-member HCS have insisted on holding a referendum on the constitution adopted by the Libyan Constituent Assembly in July 2017, a step the HCS had also previously opposed in 2018.

The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) has not commented on the joint statement issued by the 142 advocates of a constitutional referendum. Some voices from this camp have also called for the reconstitution of the Supreme Electoral Commission, a suggestion the Western powers oppose because it would prevent the elections being held on time in December.

Some participants in the Berlin I Conference have been dragging their heels on implementing their obligations to withdraw the mercenaries and military advisers they poured into the country to help their proxies.

However, this is only one of the problems that cloud the future unification of the Libyan military and security establishment, despite the major inroads that have been achieved towards this end thanks to Egyptian mediating efforts, leading to the unification of the Libyan army command in 2018 and the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire in 2020.

A conducive environment at all levels is required in order to furnish the solid foundations needed to proceed to free-and-fair elections in Libya, the results of which can be accepted by all.

Above all, the major Libyan stakeholders have yet to meet the commitment they made to Libya’s international partners to do what is necessary to ensure the success of the roadmap adopted by the LPDF in November 2020. This includes implementing UN Security Council Resolutions 2570 and 2571. Other inhibiting factors are the lack of a unified European stance on key issues and the Russian-Turkish rivalry in Libya.

The Libyan crisis has thus far generated numerous attempts to shape and promote the peace process. These include the 55-point, UN-endorsed Berlin process with its political, security and economic tracks, the outputs of previous UN-sponsored meetings between the Libyan factions such as the 2015 Skhirat Agreement, the Roadmap to an Interim Phase for a Comprehensive Solution and the Executive Authority Powers, documents adopted by the LPDF in Tunisia in November 2020, and the Bouznika Understandings reached between the HoR and the HCS in March and April on executive offices, the legal basis for the elections, and the electoral laws.

These multiple frames-of-reference, with their ambiguities and contradictions, offer plenty of room for the various players to manoeuvre. But the main goal must be to promote a peace settlement that all the Libyan parties can commit to and ensure that outside actors genuinely support the UN-facilitated process.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 17 June, 2021 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly