The boat sinks, the passengers began to drown, and the crew still could not launch the lifeboats. This is the unfortunate impression that Lebanon and its leaders give in this eminently dangerous period for the country. While the population plunges into misery, a consequence of the state’s bankruptcy and the brutal collapse of the national currency against the dollar, the negotiations started in mid-May with a view to an agreement with the IMF, the last lifeline of the countries continue to skate.
The discussions, on which the release of several billion dollars of budget aid to Lebanon depends, have still not passed the diagnostic stage. And for good reason: despite seventeen successive meetings, the Lebanese delegation, undermined by the divisions, fails to agree on the level of the country’s losses and on the means to absorb them, a prerequisite for any support by the IMF. . Its members are waging a battle of ragpickers, through the media, under the dismayed gaze of experts from the international institution.
The conflict opposes the supporters of the government bailout plan, drawn up in partnership with the Lazard cabinet, which Prime Minister Hassan Diab presented at the end of April, to the supporters of the plan of the Association of Lebanese Banks (ABL) scaffolded in reaction. The first figure at 68 billion dollars the hole of the Lebanese financial sector (50 billion for the central bank, the Bank of Lebanon [BDL] and 18 billion for private banks) while the second refuses to recognize the slightest loss, arguing that it is a simple liability, erasable in the future with state assets.
The IMF has come out of its usual reserve three times, twice through the voice of its spokesperson and once through the voice of its president, something even rarer, to signal that the government’s estimates corresponded overall to its own. Two Lebanese negotiators smashed their aprons, exasperated by the stalled negotiations and the obstruction practiced by the ABL. And yet, with the support of the Parliament’s finance committee and several party leaders, the bankers continue to stand up to the government and use the patience of the IMF.
Declarations of intent
“The question of the amount of losses is a false debate”protests Makram Sader, the general secretary of the ABL, who maintains that “Neither the state [qui a fait défaut sur sa dette souveraine en mars], neither the BDL nor the banking sector are bankrupt ”. Regretting that his organization had not been sufficiently consulted when the government plan was being drawn up, he said that the ABL remained in favor of an agreement with the IMF. “We need a currency injection and a framework to compel the government to carry out the reforms that the international community has been asking for for years”, he says.
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