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The EU is stepping up its financial support to Lebanon to counter instability in the region and curb the number of Europe-bound refugees.
The bloc will pay €1bn in grants over the next three years, a significant increase in bilateral assistance to Lebanon, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday in Beirut.
The aid package comes amid a surge in hostility towards Syrian refugees in the country and an increase in irregular migration by boat to Cyprus from Lebanon. Plagued by a devastating economic crisis since 2019, Lebanon has struggled to accommodate the approximately 1.5mn Syrian nationals who have fled the war in their country — the largest per capita population of displaced people in the world.
“Since the outbreak of the fighting in Syria in 2011, Lebanon has borne the greatest burden among the countries of the region and the world in the matter of hosting the displaced . . . putting a great pressure on the Lebanese people as a whole and on all Lebanese sectors,” said Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
He welcomed the additional support from the EU in policing Lebanon’s borders, but also warned that the security of Lebanon and Europe were “related”.
“Any blow-up related to the issue of displaced persons will not be limited to Lebanon, but will extend to Europe to become a regional and international crisis,” Mikati said.
For years, Lebanon’s government and major political figures including Mikati, have called for the international community to help resettle the refugees or return them to Syria. Frustrated with the lack of support, Lebanon has ramped up forced deportations across the porous border to Syria over the past year, efforts decried by rights groups.
Mikati called for the EU and international actors to recognise “that most of the Syrian areas have become safe, which [would] facilitate the process of returning displaced persons”.
Syrians were the top nationality claiming asylum in the EU in 2023, according to the EU Asylum Agency. The UN maintains that conditions in Syria are not safe, preventing it from promoting or facilitating refugee returns.
Among the EU’s frontline states, Cyprus has been overwhelmed by the uptick in irregular migration of Syrian asylum seekers this year, and last month suspended processing their applications.
The UN’s refugee agency UNHCR said about 3,200 people had left Lebanon by boat between January and mid-April of this year, compared to just 54 people in the same period last year. Rights groups have accused the Cypriot coast guards of forcibly pushing back boats coming from Lebanon, which is illegal under international law.
A spokesperson for the EU commission said €736mn of the aid package will go towards supporting Lebanon in response to the Syrian refugees, while the remaining €264mn will support the security services of the country, including its army.
Lebanon has received more than €3bn from the EU since 2011, of which some €2.6bn were dedicated to the issue of Syrian refugees.
Lebanon also hosts 250,000 Palestinian refugees and has been affected by the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which has spilled into the neighbouring country where Israel and Lebanon’s Hizbollah militant group have engaged in increasingly escalatory crossfire.
“We are deeply concerned about the volatile situation in south Lebanon. What is at stake is the security of both Lebanon and Israel,” von der Leyen said.
Additional reporting by Daria Mosolova in Brussels
