Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Free Patriotic Movement on Tuesday announced they will attend a potential legislative parliamentary session if structural reforms that are demanded by the International Monetary Fund are approved.
In a statement, FPM said it "restates its stance of rejecting any legislating of spending the mandatory BDL reserves whose goal is to buy time with the depositors' money in order to fund the state with its deficits and to stabilize the exchange rate with a high cost instead of approving the reforms necessary for the monetary stability."
"The bloc [FPM] associates its participation in any legislative session with the condition of approving all at once the legal reforms demanded which are: capital control, restructuring of the banks and the balancing of finances as well as approving a serious reformist budget for 2024 which should be sent to Parliament after the signature of all the ministers of the caretaker cabinet."
In August 2022, Lebanon reached a staff-level agreement with IMF that would provide $3 billion on condition of structural reforms that have yet to be implemented. More cash could be given to the country by foreign donors if Lebanon strikes the IMF deal.