The problem with any Financial Rescue law in Lebanon is brutally simple. Everyone wants someone else to pay.
Start with the State:
Critics say the government is paying too little. They’re right. For decades, the State pushed the central bank into acting as its personal placement agent, raising cash to finance deficits that never stopped growing. If anyone is unhappy with the government’s share today, the solution is obvious: force the State to privatize, unload dead assets, open new sectors, and use the proceeds to help repay depositors. Complaining isn’t a strategy; restructuring is. Go to your member of parliament and lobby for a change.
Then comes the central bank:
The Banque du Liban is accused of doing either too much or too little. In truth, it is carrying the lion’s share of the burden: 60% of all cash repayments and 80% of the asset-backed securities. Can it do more? Perhaps. Should it? Absolutely not. The BdL is the system’s insurer. Strip it of its remaining liquidity and assets, and there will be no lender of last resort—no banking sector to save.
Now to the banks:
People never say the banks are paying “too much.” But under this plan, they are expected to recapitalize, restore solvency, and repay 40% of the cash portion and 20% of the ABS. Can they pay more? Maybe—but barely. Their equity is gone, their Eurobond holdings are a question mark, their business model is broken, and their clients no longer trust them. At any moment, they could simply say:
“Thanks, but no thanks,” hand back the keys, and tell the BdL to return the deposits itself.
The only deals that work are the ones everyone dislikes.
If all parties are unhappy, it means all parties contributed—and surrendered something—to make the deal possible.
Lebanon has lived far too long by the logic of “You win, I lose.”
What it refuses to accept is the only truth that can still save it:
“Either we lose together to save what remains — or we lose everything.”