STL funding issue poses threats to budget or cabinet?

The cabinet will hold a meeting next Tuesday, though belated, to discuss the state budget and the issue of funding the STL whose due costs have reached 108 billion LBP, amid Hezbollah’s divergent positions on the issue. Will the cabinet collapse over this internal division? Will it postpone the state budget issue, or the STL funding?      

Sources revealed that Speaker Nabih Berri advised to postpone discussion of the state budget along with the STL funding since Lebanon is granted time until the end of the year.       

Other sources confirmed that PM Najib Mikati is ready to resign and will not accept that he and President Michel Sleiman flout their commitments before the international committee or that the STL funding issue does not win votes at cabinet.     

Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi told LBC that “the budget will be discussed article by article,” adding that the cabinet has the right to postpone any relevant article.         

Commenting on the STL funding issue, Aridi said that he favors reaching a compromise on the grounds of the approval of the funding.       

“Should we fail to reach a compromise on the issue, the cabinet will resort to voting.” he added.      

Aridi stressed that “what is important is to keep the country away from internal crisis or any confrontation with the international community.”    

In his concluding remarks, Aridi slammed “the cabinet’s low productivity given that the ministers bicker over issues that are less important than that of the STL funding.”