French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, hosted by Lebanese President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace, on Oct. 14, 2022. (Credit: Dalati and Nohra)
BEIRUT — French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna met with Lebanon's president, caretaker prime minister and Parliament speaker Friday morning as part of a visit aimed at highlighting the importance of the presidential elections and the upcoming end of Aoun's term.
Colonna said that if a Lebanese president is not elected before Aoun's mandate ends on Oct. 31, Lebanon could "find itself in a vacuum that would weaken the Lebanese position," the Grand Serail announced via Twitter.
However, at a press conference later in the day, the minister said the election of a new head of state "is still possible" before the constitutional deadline.
On the sidelines of a meeting with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati at the Grand Serail in Beirut, Colonna called for "continuing the necessary reforms to achieve the final signing of the agreement with the [International Monetary Fund]," an agreement that provides financial assistance to a Lebanon mired by a deepening economic crisis.
International expectations
"The entire international community is waiting for the election of a new president," said Colonna, in remarks reported by the Grand Serail on Twitter. The French minister urged the respect of this deadline to avoid the potential for a vacuum and the need to conduct "negotiations to resolve its crises and important issues."
During Friday's meeting with Aoun, Colonna, who arrived in Beirut on Thursday evening, was joined by Lebanon's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants Abdallah Bou Habib, as well as a French delegation and France's Ambassador to Lebanon, Anne Grillo.
After their meeting, Aoun said the agreement on the maritime border "is a fundamental start to address the economic and financial crisis that Lebanon is going through," according to a presidential statement.
Aoun also said it is "important to find a consensus around a new president who takes over his duties, guarantees the continuity of the work of state institutions and completes the fight against corruption."
We will help 'as much as Lebanon will help itself'
At a press conference at Beirut International Airport just before her departure, Colonna said Lebanese "leaders must live up to their responsibilities."
"Lebanon is at the end of its rope and, without the officials' efforts, the collapse will continue," she said. "It would be dangerous to make the Lebanese people suffer a new political crisis via a power vacuum."
She said Lebanon cannot afford a presidential vacancy like the one the country experienced between 2014 and 2016.
"France and the international community are there. The friends of Lebanon will help Lebanon as much as it will help itself," Colonna added. France is among the countries urging the Lebanese authorities to adopt the reforms needed to pull the country out of collapse.
"Lebanon is capable of moving forward, but the [maritime border] agreement is not a substitute for the economic and financial reforms that are and remain indispensable," she said.
Colonna's visit to Beirut followed Lebanese MPs' Thursday failure, once again, to elect a successor to Mr. Aoun, thus aggravating fears of a power vacuum.
"France has worked with its international partners" to help Lebanon achieve the maritime border agreement, according to a statement from the Quai d'Orsay, published before Colonna's tour in Beirut.
The agreement should remove obstacles to the exploitation of gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean. Lebanese authorities are counting on the presence of hydrocarbons to help mitigate the economic collapse but, according to experts, the country needs five to six years before benefiting from possible gas and oil windfall.
Reporting contributed by Salah Hijazi.