Abdalla Kablan argued that Libya missed a strategic opportunity with its nearest European neighbour (EP 19).
Malta sits roughly 350 kilometres from the Libyan coast. It is closer to Tripoli than many Libyan cities are to each other. Despite this proximity, the relationship between the two countries remained transactional — trade, migration, occasional diplomacy. It was never strategic.
Abdalla, who lectures at the University of Malta, watched Malta transform itself into a hub for fintech, digital gaming, blockchain regulation, and technology services. The island had few natural resources. It had position, policy, and intent. It built regulatory frameworks that attracted international companies. It invested in education pipelines. It made itself useful to industries that did not yet exist when Libya's oil wealth was at its peak.
Libya could have used Malta as a springboard — a gateway to European regulatory systems, technology ecosystems, and educational institutions. Libyan students could have studied there in proximity to home. Libyan companies could have used Maltese regulatory sandboxes to test financial products. The two countries could have built something symbiotic.
Instead, Abdalla said, "we saw everything as money." Libya's relationship with the outside world was reduced to resource extraction and cash flow. The concept of strategic value — relationships, knowledge transfer, institutional learning — was absent.
This was not unique to Malta. Abdalla framed it as a pattern: Libya consistently failed to convert proximity into partnership. The same applied to Tunisia, to Egypt, to southern Europe broadly. Oil wealth created the illusion that money was the only relevant metric. When the money contracted, there was nothing else.