Motion for a resolution - B9-0465/2021Motion for a resolution
B9-0465/2021

MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the situation in Lebanon

14.9.2021 - (2021/2878(RSP))

to wind up the debate on the statements by the Council and the Commission
pursuant to Rule 132(2) of the Rules of Procedure

Salima Yenbou, Ignazio Corrao, Francisco Guerreiro, Jordi Solé, Rosa D’Amato, Ernest Urtasun, Hannah Neumann, Mounir Satouri, Erik Marquardt, Alviina Alametsä, Tineke Strik, Tilly Metz
on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group

See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B9-0465/2021

Procedure : 2021/2878(RSP)
Document stages in plenary
Document selected :  
B9-0465/2021
Texts tabled :
B9-0465/2021
Votes :
Texts adopted :

B9‑0465/2021

European Parliament resolution on the situation in Lebanon

(2021/2878(RSP))

The European Parliament,

 having regard to its previous resolutions on Lebanon,

 having regard to the statement of the EEAS Spokesperson of 26 July 2021 on the government formation process,

 having regard to the Statement by the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR) Josep Borrell of 3 August 2021 on the one year anniversary of the Beirut port explosion,

 having regard to the Commission press release of 4 August 2021 entitled ‘Lebanon: EU mobilises EUR 5.5 million for coronavirus response’,

 having regard to the Council conclusions on Lebanon of 7 December 2020 and to the conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Council of 12 July 2021,

 having regard to the Lebanon Reform, Recovery & Reconstruction Framework (3RF),

 having regard to the 2020 EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World,

 having regard to the statement of the International Support Group for Lebanon of 20 August 2021,

 having regard to the concluding observations of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of 1 September 2021 on Lebanon,

 having regard to UNICEF’s press release of 23 July 2021 entitled ‘Lebanon: Public water system on the verge of collapse, UNICEF warns’,

 having regard to the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions on Lebanon and to the most recent report of the UN Secretary-General of 13 July 2021 on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701 (2006) during the period from 20 February to 18 June 2021,

 having regard to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,

 having regard to Rule 132(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas more than one year after the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, there have been no major arrests, the local investigation continues to stall and wider reforms of the country’s politics and economy are yet to take place;

B. whereas the violent explosion which took place in Beirut port in August 2020 claimed the lives of 200 people, wounded 6 000 others and left around 300 000 people homeless; whereas the 2020 explosion was caused by a combination of corruption and negligence which led to the illegal storing of 2 750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate at the port;

C. whereas Lebanon is facing a devastating economic, financial, social and political crisis, at great human cost to the people of Lebanon; whereas the World Bank has described the crisis as a ‘deliberate depression’ created by the political elite’s unwillingness to prioritise much-needed reform measures over their own political and economic interests; whereas on 19 May 2021, the International Support Group for Lebanon issued a statement in Beirut, in which it urged the ‘formation of a fully empowered government’ to carry out indispensable reforms, noting that ‘responsibility for averting a deeper crisis rests with the Lebanese leadership’ and calling for ‘elections to take place on time in order to preserve Lebanon’s democracy’;

D. whereas the collapse in the value of the currency and massive inflation are pushing around 80 % of the population below the poverty line; whereas the collapse of the banking sector which began in 2019 prevented access to bank accounts for people residing in Lebanon and created deep economic hardship; whereas the World Bank has indicated that the economy of Lebanon had shrunk by 20.3 %t in 2020 and was projected to contract by a further 9.5 % in 2021, adding that the social impact of the crisis, which is already dire, could rapidly become catastrophic;

E. whereas around 80 % of the population already live below the national poverty line; whereas the World Bank also underscored that urgent action is needed to avoid the electricity sector’s complete collapse in the immediate future; whereas, according to UNICEF, more than four million people, including one million refugees, are at immediate risk of losing access to safe water in Lebanon; whereas UNICEF warned that water costs could skyrocket by 200 % a month if the public water supply system collapse were to collapse and water had to be secured from alternative or private water suppliers; whereas, according to the World Food Programme, in 2021, 22 % of Lebanese nationals, 50 % of refugees from Syria and 33 % of refugees of other nationalities are food insecure; whereas Lebanon hosts a community of about 1.5 million refugees from Syria; whereas COVID-19 is having a particularly severe impact on the population in the country;

F. whereas, despite the suspension of the banking secrecy law, there has been a lack of progress on the forensic audit of the Central Bank; whereas, following reports of a Swiss investigation into transactions allegedly involving the Governor of the Central Bank, Riad Salameh, and his brother, the Lebanese public prosecutor launched an investigation and French prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation into money laundering allegations concerning Salameh; whereas the Governor of the Central Bank denies all allegations;

G. whereas the National Anti-Corruption Institution is still not operational as the appointment of its commissioners is pending; whereas the National Commission for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons in Lebanon and the National Human Rights Commission, including the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, remain inoperative;

H. whereas Lebanon has a vibrant civil society with numerous activists, community leaders, academics, artists and youth groups mobilising and calling for urgent reforms; whereas the initial protests in 2011 were followed by a second wave of protests in the summer of 2015, when Lebanon experienced exceptionally hot weather due to climate change, electricity shortages, rubbish piling high in the streets and government deadlock following a second postponement of parliamentary elections; whereas a new wave of protests started in 2019, calling for politicians to be held to account for the country’s debilitating corruption;

I. whereas under the current system, people in Lebanon are not free to participate equally but face discrimination depending on the sect, gender, and class they are born into; whereas since 1990, activists and civil society leaders have been calling for the removal of references to sect from people’s identity cards;

J. whereas since the October 2019 uprisings, Lebanese society has been calling for political reforms to urgently address the current devastating economic collapse and corruption; whereas the protests continued after the resignation of the then Prime Minister, Saad al-Hariri, amid popular demand for the formation of a government that would fight corruption, enact reforms and be free from partisan influence and manipulation; whereas the subsequent government headed by Prime Minister Hassan Diab was unable to address the urgent need for reforms and resigned following the port explosion, but remained in office in an administrative caretaker capacity;

K. whereas shortly after the 2020 explosion, the parliament initially nominated Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany, Mustapha Adib, to form a government; whereas following Adib’s resignation in October 2020, the parliament tasked Saad al-Hariri with forming a government; whereas Saad al-Hariri declared his inability to form a government and subsequently resigned, sparking a new fall in the value of the currency; whereas on 10 September 2021, Lebanese leaders agreed a new government under the leadership of Prime Minister Najib Mikati, after a year of political feuding over cabinet seats that has exacerbated a devastating economic collapse;

L. whereas, after the explosion, the EU joined the World Bank and the United Nations in issuing a Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment report clarifying that Lebanon would have to implement a credible reform agenda if it wanted to access international assistance and development funding; whereas the report identifies the following in which reforms are necessary: macroeconomic stabilisation, including measures to restore confidence in Lebanon’s fiscal institutions; governance measures to foster an independent and transparent judiciary; initiatives to establish a functional operating environment for the private sector, including those to enhance the competition framework and thereby create a market free from the effects of grand corruption; and a social protection system that would guarantee human security;

M. whereas the current political, social, economic and financial crisis is the direct result of governance decisions that were taken at the end of the civil war in 1990, including the granting of amnesty to military chiefs for war crimes, which led to widespread corruption and mismanagement across the state; whereas the reforms outlined in the 1989 Taif Agreement, which ended the civil war, have been severely hindered by the prolonged post-war impunity, which worsened following Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, with the consequent empowerment of Hezbollah;

N. whereas the 1989 Taif Agreement contained important calls for administrative decentralisation, eradication of sectarianism, sustainable development and equal rights of citizens; whereas these calls have not been implemented to date;

1. Expresses its gravest concern at the protraction of the political, economic, financial and social crisis in Lebanon, which continues to cause suffering to the population; expresses its full support for all the people affected by the ongoing crisis, including to all the victims of the August 2020 blast and their families;

2. Denounces the grave responsibility of the past and current leaders in the protraction and deepening of the crisis and condemns in the strongest terms the deliberate disaster the people of Lebanon are experiencing;

3. Is alarmed by the increasingly heated rhetoric between the political actors in Lebanon and calls on the prime minister, the president, the new government and all political actors in the country to engage in meaningful dialogue with a view to taking immediate steps towards vital reforms ensuring anticorruption measures, macroeconomic policy, an independent judiciary and more inclusive healthcare and education systems;

4. Recalls that the EU, the World Bank and the UN have demanded the establishment of an independent and transparent judiciary, the adoption of a modern public procurement law and the enactment of an anticorruption strategy, and denounces the lack of action by successive Lebanese governments over the past years;

5. Denounces in particular the current sectarian system, under which people in Lebanon are not free to participate equally in society but face discrimination depending on the sect, gender, and class they are born into, and calls for urgent reforms to enable equal representation and social inclusion;

6. Urges the Lebanese authorities to take all steps necessary to ensure that transparent and democratic elections are conducted in a timely manner in 2022; stresses the importance of urgent reforms to ensure clarity on the applicable electoral framework as well as measures to strengthen the participation of women, young people and persons with disabilities in the political process; recalls that the United Nations has developed a framework to support women as candidates and voters and thus promote greater participation by women in the political process and calls for this framework to be fully integrated into plans for electoral reform; urges the Lebanese authorities to ensure that international observers are invited and are able to scrutinise the elections, and calls for the full implementation of the recommendations stemming from the 2018 EU Election Observation Mission;

7. Calls on the EU and its Member States urgently to take the lead at the UN Human Rights Council to secure the adoption of a resolution establishing an international, independent investigative mission into the Beirut blast, mandated to carry out a thorough investigation into human rights violations and abuses related to the explosion and the domestic judicial investigation, and formulating recommendations on measures needed to guarantee that those responsible for these violations and abuses are held accountable and to address the underlying systemic failures that led to the explosion and to the failure of the domestic investigation;

8. Calls on the Lebanese authorities to ensure the full independence of the future members of the National Anti-Corruption Institution and to avoid any form of patronage in the appointment of its members or those of the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared;

9. Recalls that funding for the 3RF is essential and urges the Government of Lebanon to implement without further delay the priority policy actions of the framework to enable its reconstruction phase to commence;

10. Welcomes the efforts of the EU towards the creation of a blueprint for a consultative process as part of the 3RF, recommended by the Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment; stresses the importance of the process of deliberation and dialogue in restoring trust among communities, donors, and public institutions; stresses that recovery interventions funded under the 3RF include key support for rebuilding homes and local businesses, providing healthcare assistance and funding schools; calls on the Commission to include Lebanon as a priority country for the programming period of the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) - Global Europe;

11. Stresses, however, that given the dire conditions on the ground, an immediate increase in humanitarian assistance should also be provided, coupled with additional plans to support core public services;

12. Demands that the Commission insist on accountability and close monitoring of EU-funded projects and strongly deplores the extremely high level of mismanagement and lack of financial oversight over funds delivered in the past, including the case of EU-funded recycling plants which never became operational; calls on the European Court of Auditors and the European Anti-Fraud Office to scrutinise and investigate any such cases of mismanagement; calls for the creation of an international ad hoc financial scrutiny taskforce led by the World Bank or by the International Monetary Fund, tasked with scrutinising the use of international financing and ensuring that international funding is used to the benefit of citizens by the national ministries and administration; calls for an investigation into and scrutiny over the possible complicity of EU-based intermediaries in illicit financial flows from Lebanon into the EU;

13. Calls on the VP/HR, the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the Member States to continue to firmly pressure Lebanon’s political representatives towards reform, including by conditioning large-scale structural support on the implementation of real change, including anti-corruption measures, macroeconomic policy, an independent judiciary and more inclusive healthcare and education systems; calls, in parallel, on the EU and on its Member States to continue supporting grassroots organisations, civil society, local partners, institutions and leaders who can deliver on reforms;

14. Calls on the EU and its Member States to support grassroots activists and civil society actors working on reforms and anti-corruption in Lebanon and to pursue an approach that supports bottom-up humanitarian and stabilisation efforts; praises the initiatives of local communities and civil society aimed at establishing local mechanisms to deliver aid, improve services and redefine the rights and responsibilities of citizens and the government;

15. Calls for immediate sanctions against individual members of Lebanon’s political elite who refuse to prioritise the country’s and citizens’ needs and who instead place their private gain above public well-being; welcomes, to this end, the announced establishment by the Council of a sanctions regime against those responsible for the situation but regrets the lack of implementation of this sanctions regime; calls on the Council to adopt targeted sanctions, also in coordination with other international partners, against individuals and entities implicated in ‘ill-gotten gains’ scandals and in gross violations of international human rights law resulting from the Beirut blast of 4 August 2020, who remain in positions of government authority from which they are engaged in further abuses or efforts to secure their own impunity;

16. Is alarmed by the lack of accountability for public servants and by the use of excessive force against demonstrators, coupled with the absence of impartial investigations into allegations of cases of torture and enforced disappearances;

17. Calls on Member States to reconsider all arms export to Lebanese security forces in the light of reported incidents of lethal and excessive use of force against protesters, and - in line with Common Position 2008/944/CFSP - to investigate whether arms exports are strictly in line with eight criteria in particular as regards risk of internal repression and diversion or if they have gone or will go to abusive units; calls for an immediate halt to such exports if this is found to be the case;

18. Deplores the dire situation of the Palestine refugee community in Lebanon and calls in this regard for their systematic inclusion in the EU’s humanitarian response in Lebanon and for increased support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), as the basic provider of essential services to these extremely vulnerable communities;

19. Is alarmed by the increase in hate speech against refugees and migrants, in particular migrant domestic workers in the country; expresses grave concern at the increasing reports of cases of torture and pressure on refugees from Syria to accept a voluntary return to Syria;

20. calls on the Member States to show much stronger commitment to responsibility-sharing, so as to enable refugees to find protection beyond the immediate neighbouring region, by means of resettlement, humanitarian admission schemes, simplified family reunification and more flexible visa regulations; recalls that in order to achieve enduring solutions for displaced persons, sufficient long-term funding and programming are crucial to support IDPs and refugees beyond the humanitarian programme cycle;

21. Recalls its strong support for all human rights defenders in Lebanon and their work; calls on the EU Delegation and Member States’ representations in the country to strengthen their support for civil society in their engagement with the Lebanese authorities, and to use all the instruments available to step up their support for the work of human rights defenders and, where appropriate, to facilitate the issuance of emergency visas and provide temporary shelter in the EU Member States;

22. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission/High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Government and the National Parliament of Lebanon.

Last updated: 14 September 2021
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