Prime Minister Saad Hariri stressed Friday that the French President Emmanuel Macron is keen on helping Lebanon’s stability, noting that Macron seeks reform, good performance and fighting corruption.
In a statement outside Elysee Palace after meeting the French president, Hariri stated that they took into consideration all the remarks, mainly speeding up the implementation of the reforms.
He PM stressed that Macron is working on restoring calm in the region, mainly after the escalation reached recently, emphasizing that the Aramco crisis is very serious.
On another note, the prime minister declared that work is underway to form a supreme committee between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, tasked with working on means for the kingdom to help Lebanon on the economic level.
Asked about the 400 million euros believed to be a new loan from France, Hariri explained that “it is not a new loan, at the Rome conference there was support for the Lebanese army and we have a program of one billion dollars to equip the Lebanese army and if we want to spend this amount, it will cost us about 14 or 15% interests to arm ourselves with the ships we need, since we are working on the issue of maritime oil and gas exploitation, and therefore we must protect these industries.”
“We are currently negotiating with the French state on how to obtain this loan over a period of 10 or 15 years in order to purchase these ships,” he continued.