France and Italy Push Lebanon Force

Emmanuel Macron and Giorgia Meloni came out of their Antibes summit this week with a plan that sounds simple enough: build a multinational coalition to take over from UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, when its mandate expires on 31 December 2026 (Daily Sabah, UN News). They cast it as a way to avoid a "dangerous security vacuum" in southern Lebanon. The real test is whether any other European capital can join such a mission legally, politically or practically.

Two plans, one label

The French-Italian version is the expansive one: a broad coalition, working with the EU and UN, and presented as support for Lebanese sovereignty (Euronews). The plan circulating through the EEAS, the EU’s diplomatic service, is more limited. It would create a three-year civilian-military mission to advise and train Lebanon’s armed forces on border security, surveillance and maritime protection (Devdiscourse, LBC Group).

That difference is not cosmetic. A training mission can be explained at home as capacity-building. An armed peacekeeping force asks parliaments to accept the risk of casualties. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has put forward his own options, from roughly 2,000 to more than 5,500 uniformed UN personnel to monitor the ceasefire and support the Lebanese army (UN News). Whether the successor is a UN operation, an EU mission or a coalition of willing states decides what legal authority each country needs. The Macron-Meloni initiative is therefore competing with a possible redesigned UN presence, not simply stepping into its place.

The domestic locks

Every European government that might send troops has a lock of its own at home.

Ireland is the most immediate example. For any overseas deployment of more than 12 soldiers, Irish law requires the so-called triple lock: approval from the Government, the Dáil and a UN mandate. Cabinet has approved legislation to remove the UN requirement, but it has not passed the Dáil and is already meeting resistance from Fianna Fáil backbenchers (RTÉ, Irish Examiner). If the successor to UNIFIL is not itself a UN operation, Ireland cannot take part under current law. That leaves the Security Council, including veto-holding Russia and China, with indirect power over Irish crisis-management decisions.

Germany is heading for the exit. The Bundestag has extended Germany’s UNIFIL role one final time, with a wind-down phase running until mid-2027 (Deutschlandfunk). Any fresh armed deployment would need a new parliamentary mandate and a clear basis in international law. Berlin says it wants a "viable politico-military overall concept" before going back in (Bundesregierung). In plainer terms: a defined job, a route out and a credible plan to protect the force.

Spain has around 650 soldiers in UNIFIL and knows the ground, but Spanish deployments also require congressional authorisation (Infobae/EFE). Madrid has not yet made public any official position on the French-Italian proposal.

Where the force would operate from

Cyprus is where the plan stops being only about Lebanon and starts being about Europe’s ability to project force in the eastern Mediterranean. Nicosia has been upgrading military facilities through a defence partnership with France, putting the island in position as a logistics base for regional operations (Cyprus Mail). Any European mission close to Lebanon would probably depend on Cypriot infrastructure for supply and evacuation.

That brings Turkey into the frame. Operations staged from Cyprus touch Ankara’s unresolved dispute over the island and its wider claims in the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey is likely to see a European mission based there less as stabilisation than as France and its allies securing a lasting regional foothold.

What remains open

Seven UNIFIL peacekeepers have been killed since March. The Security Council has adopted a resolution on accountability for crimes against peacekeepers, saying attacks could amount to war crimes (UN Press). That record will sit in the room when every parliament is asked to vote on whatever comes next.

Six months before UNIFIL’s mandate expires, the French-Italian coalition is still at the stage where summit language is doing more work than hard commitments. The unanswered question is who sends soldiers into southern Lebanon without a UN blue helmet, under what authority, with what rules on the use of force, and who carries responsibility when it goes wrong. Europe has an ambition. It does not yet have a force, a mandate or a clear chain of responsibility.