French President Emmanuel Macron has laid out outline for political and economic reforms that politicians in Lebanon should undertake in order to allow the flow of foreign aid and rescue the country from many crises, including economic collapse.
A Lebanese political source said that the French ambassador to Beirut handed over the "ideas paper", which came in two pages that Reuters has seen.
A source at Macron’s Elysee office said the ambassador had handed a short document to President Michel Aoun and Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, but described it as informal and not a roadmap.
The necessary reforms included in the document cover an audit of the central bank accounts, the formation of an interim government capable of implementing urgent reforms, and early legislative elections within a year.
Lebanon's current caretaker government, which took office in January with support from Hezbollah and its allies, has failed to make progress in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout package due to deadlock over reforms and a dispute over the size of the financial sector losses.
The government resigned this month following a massive blast at Beirut port that killed at least 180 people, injured nearly 6,000 others and destroyed entire neighborhoods.
“The priority must go to the rapid formation of a government, to avoid a power vacuum which will leave Lebanon to sink further into the crisis,” the French paper reads.
The paper deals with four other sectors that need urgent attention, which are: humanitarian assistance, the authorities' handling of the Covid-19 disease, reconstruction after the August 4 explosion in the Beirut port, political and economic reforms and legislative parliamentary elections.
It also called for progress in IMF talks and United Nations oversight on international humanitarian funds pledged to Lebanon in recent weeks, as well as an impartial investigation into the cause of the detonation of vast amounts of highly explosive material stored unsafely at the port for years.
The French ideas stresses the need for an immediate and complete audit of public finances and reform of the electricity sector, which drains public funds while failing to provide adequate electricity. In addition, parliament must enact the laws necessary to bring about change in the transitional period. "All the blocs should vote on these measures, so that the new government can adopt them in the coming months," the paper stated.
An Elysee source said that the document reiterated proposals that had been agreed upon within the framework of the 2018 donors conference to support Lebanon, and the international support group meeting after that.
"This document reaffirms that France is ready to support Lebanon in a manner consistent with this framework. It is not a roadmap in any way," he added.
Macron visited Beirut shortly after the blast and made it clear that no blank cheques would be given to the Lebanese state if it did not enact reforms against waste, graft and negligence. The French President is scheduled to land in Beirut next Tuesday.
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