A plaque bearing the emblem of the International Monetary Fund at the organization's headquarters in Washington, April 21, 2025. (Credit: Philippe Hage Boutros/L'Orient-Le Jour archives)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday welcomed the amendments to the bank resolution law passed by the Lebanese Parliament, in the institution’s first official reaction as Lebanon has been seeking IMF assistance since 2020, contingent on the implementation of reforms.
"We welcome the amendments to the bank resolution law approved last week by the Lebanese Parliament, which represent a major step toward aligning this law with international best practices," said the IMF’s representative in Lebanon, Federico Lima, who is completing his term this week, in a statement sent to L’Orient-Le Jour and the Reuters news agency.
Federico Lima, however, stressed that "the effective implementation of this new bank resolution framework is essential," a comment that refers to a recurring issue in Lebanon, where solid parliamentary measures often remain inoperative due to a lack of political agreement to adopt the necessary implementing decrees, appoint the members of the regulatory authorities established, or even have the relevant authorities apply laws that have been duly passed and are legally operational.
Continued talks
The IMF representative also noted that the Fund "continues discussions with Lebanese authorities on the necessary improvements to align the draft law on financial stabilization and deposit recovery with international principles, so that the banking sector can be restructured and depositors can gradually gain access to their funds."
The bank resolution law is one of a handful of critical texts that Lebanon must adopt and implement to convince the IMF to begin to trust it, starting with reaching a new staff-level agreement, a prelude to a possible endorsement by the Fund’s board for a full program. After decades of overspending by the country’s ruling elite, which led the economy into a severe crisis at the end of 2019, the banks that year imposed severe restrictions on capital movements, depriving depositors of access to their accounts, and stopped issuing loans.
The amendments now passed are meant to correct Parliament’s course, which in the summer of 2025 had adopted a bank resolution law considered non-compliant with international standards on several points. The government later sent back, about a year later, a draft law with amendments approved by the Fund to the Finance Committee, which again made certain changes that altered the text — particularly following the recommendations of Banque du Liban governor Karim Souhaid, who opposes the Fund on some issues.
In last Thursday’s session, Finance Minister Yassin Jaber pushed to revert to the government’s version for certain articles, as he had done remotely in April 2025 for the law amending the partial lifting of banking secrecy in Lebanon, another critical text that was also modified by MPs — this time in joint committees — before being voted on. At the time, the IMF had expressed its disappointment during the Fund’s spring meetings, which were attended by a delegation led by the minister.
While MP Alain Aoun, member of Parliament’s Finance and Budget Committee (formerly of the Free Patriotic Movement), told Reuters on Thursday that Parliament had "satisfied 99 percent" of the IMF’s demands, the amendments decided upon diverge on several points — some particularly sensitive — despite the Finance Minister’s efforts to steer things back on course.
It should also be noted that the IMF’s director for the Middle East and Central Asia, Jihad Azour, has in recent days visited President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. According to an IMF source, however, the former Lebanese finance minister is on vacation and these visits have nothing to do with the Lebanese dossier, on which he neither comments nor intervenes.
