BEIRUT — Lebanon’s unresolved banking crisis returned to the center of politics Tuesday as Parliament opened a two-day session questioning Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government at the same time an International Monetary Fund mission began meetings in Beirut.
The timing puts the country’s frozen-deposit crisis back under pressure from both domestic lawmakers and international lenders.
During the parliamentary session, Salam said his government would not withdraw the financial-gap bill, arguing that doing so would waste more time. He said the government remains prepared to discuss amendments within Parliament.
The legislation is central to Lebanon’s attempt to resolve losses accumulated through the collapse of its banking system and determine how the burden is divided among the state, Banque du Liban, commercial banks, shareholders and depositors.
That question remains politically explosive because deposits have remained restricted since the financial system began unraveling in 2019, while no final mechanism has yet restored normal access to those savings.
At nearly the same moment Tuesday, an IMF delegation began meetings with Lebanese officials. The visit is expected to examine the financial-gap framework, banking-sector restructuring, fiscal policy, public debt and other economic reforms.
The IMF has repeatedly tied any future support program to a credible banking restructuring and medium-term fiscal strategy.
For depositors, however, the central question remains unchanged: who ultimately pays for the losses, and how much of the frozen money can realistically be returned?
Lebanon has moved forward on parts of its banking-reform framework, but the financial-gap and deposit-recovery issue remains unfinished.
Tuesday’s convergence of an IMF mission and parliamentary scrutiny therefore creates a new test for Beirut. The debate is no longer simply over acknowledging the banking losses. It is over converting years of competing proposals into a formula Parliament, the government, Banque du Liban, the banks and international lenders can actually accept.
