For more than three decades, Lebanon’s political system has demonstrated a consistent ability to reinterpret the intentions of the international community in ways that protect its own survival. Reform language is absorbed, reshaped, and redeployed domestically to preserve entrenched interests. The latest engagement with the International Monetary Fund offers another example of this dynamic.
Following the recent IMF mission visit to Lebanon, the Fund’s statement focused on three central pillars: the urgent need to restructure the financial sector, the importance of restoring confidence in the banking system, and the necessity of safeguarding the state’s debt sustainability. The mission emphasized that these objectives must be supported by a credible fiscal framework and a coherent medium-term plan. It also cautioned against significant increases in public sector salaries that could undermine fiscal stability and weaken the country’s already fragile debt dynamics.
The IMF’s message was technically straightforward. Financial sector restructuring must proceed in a way that rebuilds trust while maintaining debt sustainability. Fiscal discipline is not optional. New spending commitments must be anchored in a broader reform strategy.
Yet within Lebanon’s political discourse, these principles are rarely applied consistently.
Whenever the IMF refers to debt sustainability, successive governments interpret this as a reason for the state to avoid contributing to the recapitalization of the central bank. The argument advanced is that any public contribution would increase sovereign liabilities and therefore threaten fiscal stability. Similarly, when the IMF underscores the importance of respecting the hierarchy of claims, meaning that losses should first be borne by bank shareholders and creditors before depositors, this is translated domestically into the notion that the government itself bears no financial responsibility.
In practice, IMF terminology becomes a convenient shield. Sustainability is invoked to justify the absence of state participation in financial repair. Burden sharing is framed narrowly, limiting the state’s role while broader systemic responsibilities are left unaddressed.
At the same time, the government is moving toward expanding public sector salaries, a measure that could eventually cost more than one billion dollars annually. This expansion is being contemplated prior to any meaningful restructuring of state owned enterprises, prior to reform of the heavily burdened public education system, and prior to a comprehensive overhaul of public sector inefficiencies. Without structural reform, such recurring expenditures risk becoming permanent fiscal obligations that could spiral beyond control.
The contradiction is evident. Debt sustainability is treated as paramount when it concerns contributing to financial sector losses and protecting depositors. It becomes secondary when spending serves political patronage and short term stability within the public sector. The concept is applied selectively depending on political convenience rather than fiscal coherence.
The deeper concern lies in the absence of clear, binding direction. Without explicit requirements for serious public sector reform and without a defined state commitment to central bank recapitalization, the system retains the ability to reinterpret IMF language to its advantage. This creates a situation in which the IMF’s carefully calibrated terminology can be repurposed domestically in ways that dilute accountability.
If this pattern continues, the Fund risks becoming an unwitting partner in mismanagement. Its emphasis on sustainability may be used to avoid politically costly contributions, while its broader reform agenda remains only partially implemented. Any future IMF program would then rest on fragile foundations, vulnerable not to technical flaws but to political reinterpretation.
Lebanon’s crisis is not only financial. It is institutional and structural. Unless international engagement firmly links fiscal discipline, public sector reform, and equitable burden sharing, the cycle will persist. Sustainability will be invoked selectively, reforms will remain incomplete, and the system will continue to transform external pressure into a mechanism of self preservation.