Quote Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange View Post
Italian is facing a big problem with Gaddafy. He owns 3% of Fiat and has lot of investments in many of the italian industries.
Clearly, italian government, especially berluscony, is not willing to remove Gaddafy.
For the French and the Brits, it's different, what ever the economical investments Gaddafy did in the country, there will be no problem to find new investors. But for Italia, this will be much more difficult.
This is only a partial truth. Italy has specific interests in Libya too. Libya is a neighbour so for Itly to have some kind of a deal is NOT an option. One could argue about the specific personal style applied between Gheddafi and Berlusconi but don't be misled by these things.

The big problem is not italian economic exchange (everything is frozen up and I don't see any real problem with it). The big problem is the anglo-french strategic ends that are very difficult to understand.
In my opinion those ends are way above their means and they have no way to reach them. Now that their bluff has been called these two countries are in trouble. Anyone that could help them will ask for something. Italy has been very mistreated about the tunisian emigrants problem. And this is just a single problem. We could go on.

Could you please explain which strategic advantage could Italy obtain in helping France without a solid agreement about post-war?

Italy has no problem with the strategic acid-test: in this given situation time is on his side. Let France throw away a lot of money just to realize that is not able to reach the result. Let Gheddafi be weakened by the military presure, the sanctions etc...
We have absolutely no military capability able to flip the balance. Why confuse ourselves with the other neoimperialist? Let's wait for the political opportunity to play a specific and relevant role.

France and Great Britain has made a joke of EU common foreign policy. They have no legitimacy in judging italian and german choices.