BEIRUT — British Ambassador to Lebanon Ian Collard is a relative newcomer to the country, having arrived at the post in July 2021, when Lebanon was already well down the road to economic collapse and nearly a year after the Beirut port explosion.
While the United Kingdom’s influence in Lebanon is not as high-profile as that of some other international players — among them, France, the United States, the Gulf countries and Iran — Britain has traditionally been a significant donor: in the 2019-20 fiscal year, its foreign aid budget for Lebanon was nearly £260 million (the equivalent of about $333 million at the average exchange rate for 2020).
The amount of British aid to Lebanon has fallen off sharply since then, as the UK government slashed its foreign aid budget in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In FY 2020-21, the aid budget approved for Lebanon dropped to around £140 million, and in 2021-22 to around £32 million. In calendar year terms, the British embassy said that for 2020, its aid budget for Lebanon was around £120.6 million, falling to around £62.6m in 2021.
In a recent sit-down with reporters, Collard answered questions about the aid cuts and other issues concerning Britain’s relations with Lebanon, including his country’s reaction to banks in Lebanon that have moved to close the accounts of UK citizens and residents in the wake of a British court's ruling in favor of a depositor and against two Lebanese banks, and the potential impacts of the upcoming parliamentary elections on British policy towards Lebanon.
Aid cuts
Regarding the reductions in foreign aid and whether the war in Ukraine and ensuing refugee crisis in Europe might further divert assistance from Lebanon, Collard acknowledged that “there, obviously, are always competing demands for resources from donor countries all around the world,” among them now the Ukraine crisis.
He added, “We as a government reduced our international aid budget because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. And so our government took a decision, a temporary decision to reduce from 0.7 percent of our GNI to 0.5 percent of our GNI the amount of money that we would make available for international assistance around the world. And of course, that has, by definition, had an impact on our ability to spend money in different parts of the world.”
But, he said, “Despite all of that the UK remains a key contributor in Lebanon.”
In particular, Collard pointed to Britain’s history of support for the Lebanese Armed Forces, noting that the UK has contributed some £85 million to the army over the past 12 years. The British embassy recently announced that the UK had donated spare Land Rover parts, worth £1 million, to the LAF.
The United States and United Nations have reportedly explored the possibility of paying Lebanese soldiers’ salaries directly in recent months. In the wake of the collapse of the Lebanese currency, with an average soldier’s monthly pay now worth less than $100, some have deserted the army while many more have been moonlighting at second jobs. Despite it being officially prohibited for soldiers to work side gigs, the army has been lenient on the issue in practice.
When asked whether the UK would consider subsidizing soldiers’ pay directly, Collard said that while “it's been a part of the discussion with the wider international community, it's not something that we have a funding mechanism to do in Lebanon.”
He added, “It's perhaps easier for some countries to take on things like paying of salaries… Obviously, we have to work within our own criteria and as a result, we continue to focus on the sort of capacity building and training and things like that that we are able to do.”
Banking issues
Last month, following a British court ruling in favor of Lebanese-British businessman, Vatche Manoukian, in a complaint against Lebanese banks Bank Audi and SGBL for having refused to execute requests to transfer funds abroad from Lebanon in 2019, the British embassy in Beirut issued a statement saying it was “deeply concerned” that Lebanese banks had closed accounts of British citizens and residents in "what appears to be a targeted and discriminatory manner."
Collard told reporters that he had also “made my views very well known privately.”
“I saw a number of senior members of the Lebanese government and the Lebanese financial authorities, as well as the banking institutions themselves. And I was very clear about the concerns I had about all of this,” he said.
So far, however, Collard said the banks in question have not, to his knowledge, reversed course on the account closures.
As for what further steps the UK might take, he said that the closures “are a matter, ultimately, for the jurisdiction of Lebanon and the Lebanese courts” and that “the underlying situation with all of this, of course, is one of the economic situation in Lebanon… I think a big part of that solution that people would like to see is around a capital controls law. And obviously, that remains a matter now for Lebanon's Parliament.”
As to the UK’s position on embattled central bank chief Riad Salameh, currently the target of several international investigations into allegations of financial wrongdoing, Collard demurred.
“The governor of the central bank is an appointed position, appointed by the government of Lebanon,” he said. “We firmly believe in Lebanon's own sovereignty in deciding its own affairs and deciding how it manages its affairs. I think in any case, if there is a suggestion of the use of judicial powers, then they should be done fairly transparently, openly without political interference. But again, these are matters for Lebanon's government and Lebanon's judiciary.”
Elections and Hezbollah
Since 2019, the UK has designated both the political and military wings of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The policy is in line with the United States’ position, but differs from the position of the European Union, which has labeled only the party’s military wing as a terrorist organization. Collard said that the outcome of parliamentary elections are unlikely to substantially affect the British stance toward Lebanon, even if Hezbollah and its allies come out stronger.
“Hezbollah are part of the fabric of Lebanon — we recognize that as the United Kingdom Government,” he said. “And they currently are part of the government of Lebanon. So if they continue to be a part of the government afterwards, there is not necessarily a substantial change from the fact that they are already a part of the government and the Parliament.”
The UK having proscribed the entirety of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization “means that we have no contact with them ourselves,” he said. “We do not speak directly to Hezbollah, I do not meet Hezbollah. And we do not fund any activities or projects or programs with Hezbollah as a political party, or with any of the ministries or authorities that are controlled by Hezbollah.”
However, he added, “That has not stopped the British government from engaging with all of the other bits of the political architecture of Lebanon, whether that's bits of Parliament or bits of the cabinet or the government ministries or the armed forces.”
In practice, countries that have sanctioned Hezbollah have found workarounds to give aid to Lebanon. At the time of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, Lebanon’s Health Minister Hamad Hassan was a Hezbollah appointee, meaning that countries designating the party’s political arm as a terrorist organization could not give aid directly to the ministry. However, Lebanon received assistance for its COVID-19 response from the World Bank, which gets funding from its member countries, including the United States and the UK.