Panelists:
SAMI NADER, Economist and Director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs in Beirut
HANNES SWOBODA, President of the IIP, former MEP
Moderation:
STEPHANIE FENKART, Director of the IIP
Content:
The explosion of large amounts of ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut in August 2020 has claimed over 190 lives, even more injuries (around 6,500) and about 300 thousand displaced people. To make things worse, it has brought an already increasingly devastating situation in the country to a new level – triggering another upsurge of mass protests that had been going on in the country since October 2019. It seems that urgent/immediate crisis has hit Lebanon on every front. Structural reforms are required to end sectarian politics and systemic corruption that have plagued the country for decades now. It is not any longer financially sustainable and urgently needs an ‘injection of liquidity’. The country also accounts for the biggest number of refugees per capita – Syrians fleeing the war in their home country end up in a conflict-torn Lebanon that has no resources to provide them, or indeed its domestic population, with basic security and services. The global pandemic further aggravates the situation within the country as well as restricts budgets of foreign donors. The powerful position of Hezbollah party and its leader Hassan Nasrallah – recognized by many countries as a terrorist organization – also limits the scope and willingness of many international players to help Lebanon. Some observers already speaking of a failed state in the Middle East, others vest hopes in the support of the international community, including through humanitarian assistance and IMF loans.
The panel will discuss whether it is still possible to keep/reverse Lebanon from the brink, what political arrangements are viable/likely inside the country, what stakes regional powers have in the situation, and what role the EU has played so far and how it might further engage.