The European Union announced a €1 billion financial assistance package for Lebanon in May. Simone Tholens and Ada Sophia Hahn argue that this funding must be accompanied by a broader strategy for Lebanon that goes beyond Europe’s strategic goals in the region.
During her visit to Beirut in May, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a €1 billion aid package to assist Lebanon in managing the large-scale presence of displaced persons and bolster the country’s border security. The money will be available for distribution throughout 2024-2027, linking funding only tangentially to economic or political reform.
While the deal must be seen in the context of the EU’s overtures towards refugee hosting countries in the Mediterranean, a significant portion of the aid is directed towards bolstering the Lebanese security sector and its border security capacities specifically. Approximately €200 million has been earmarked for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), the Internal Security Forces, and General Security, providing them with “training, equipment, and the necessary infrastructure for border management”.
Driven partially by fears of further destabilisation following the outbreak of Hezbollah-Israel hostilities after the 7 October attacks, this renewed commitment to the Lebanese security sector requires reflection on the two-decade-long efforts to strengthen the country’s fragmented and politicised security institutions. Specifically, it requires strategic reflection on the future vision for the state of Lebanon, not just about Europe’s strategic goals in the region.
Security support to Lebanon: statebuilding without a state?
A relatively unconcerted cobble of international donors scaled-up their security sector support in 2006 following the conclusion of the last Israel-Hezbollah war and the adoption of UNSC Resolution 1701. The Resolution called on the international community to assist Lebanon in maintaining its territorial integrity and sovereignty. Since then, major donors including the US, the UK and France have worked with the LAF and other security agencies to boost their capabilities, often through bilateral arrangements. Over the years, US security support alone has exceeded $3 billion, while the UK has spent roughly £160 million.
The EU has transferred over €140 million to the security sector since 2006, primarily targeting border security and migration management capacities. The EU has carved out a particular niche by introducing and eventually institutionalising the concept of Integrated Border Management (IBM) in Lebanon.
Initially only implemented along the EU’s external borders, IBM constitutes an approach towards “effective, efficient and coordinated border management” intended to address cross-border crimes, such as migrant smuggling, terrorism and trafficking. IBM has since become the prevailing approach to border security in Lebanon, culminating in parliamentary endorsement of a National Strategy on IBM in 2019. While in line with the EU’s decade-long emphasis on border management, the May deal does constitute a significant increase in the scale of funding, pledging an additional €200 million over the next three years alone.
Notably, security assistance to Lebanon tends to be negotiated largely bilaterally and informally between donors and security agencies directly. Our research into the sector over the past year underlines that important stakeholders are excluded from these processes and the May-deal was no exception.
Parliamentarian and civil societal voices are frequently left unheard, leaving much to be desired in terms of democratic accountability behind this type of aid. Equally, little coordination is practiced between separate donors themselves or even among the security institutions, highlighting the absence of a national security strategy. Such a coordination model should be viewed as a problem if the deal is to benefit the Lebanese people and state as a whole, and not just protect European objectives in the region.
“Stabilisation first” amid crises and war
This largely informal and bilateral security assistance coordination has been further entrenched by the country’s economic and political crises and the increasing military escalations in the south. Severe mismanagement of Lebanon’s financial sector caused one of the worst economic crises globally since the mid-nineteenth century. Since 2019, security institutions have been forced to grapple with a sharp decline in operational capacity, high degrees of absenteeism, and severe shortages in fuel and equipment.
In response, donors have shifted resources away from holistic security governance programmes towards stabilising the crumbling security sector by providing salary support programmes and in-kind resources. A pragmatic, stability-first approach has been further necessitated by the presidential vacuum since late 2022 and a parliamentary majority reached by the Hezbollah-led alliance in 2018. A Beirut-based European External Action Service representative interviewed for this research indicated “security sector reform had been reduced to security sector support”, sidelining earlier more reform-oriented projects.
Stabilisation efforts have particularly benefitted the LAF, which emerged from the crisis with a higher degree of operational capacity compared to other security agencies (and public institutions generally). Consequently, we witnessed the army assuming a larger role in public order matters and an upsurge in LAF-facilitated deportations of Syrian migrants.
This widening portfolio of army responsibilities raises concerns not only from a statebuilding perspective but due to serious human rights concerns associated with forced returns to Syria, a country currently considered unsafe for returnees. Such concerns have been echoed repeatedly by European and Lebanese civil society voices and ought to be taken seriously if the EU wants to prevent the agreement from becoming “another cash-for-border-violence deal”. This focus on creating relatively capable and resilient security institutions is likely to persist or deepen as the escalations in Lebanon’s south move dangerously close to an all-out war with Israel.
Three ways forward for EU security sector support in Lebanon
To make the most of the new momentum generated by recent funding pledges, EU policymakers and the wider international community would be wise to reflect on what security sector assistance can do, and what it is less likely to achieve in a context like Lebanon. Three key takeaways should guide their reflection.
First, international security assistance to Lebanon can be better coordinated to maximise impact. The current approach, whereby each donor maintains bilateral relations, sometimes quite intimately through long-term advisors, with specific institutions, divisions or even units, often results in fragmentation and a lack of transparency. Should it not be possible to produce a nationally owned security assistance framework under the interim government, donor coordination can foster common objective setting and a clearer division of labour between the main embassies and delegations in Beirut.
Second, any new effort to support the Lebanese security sector should advocate for the development of a national security strategy. Without a guiding security policy, Lebanese security institutions risk becoming a service provider for the EU’s migration management efforts. The LAF’s Capability Development Plan offers a promising starting point for such a national strategy – as does the EU-facilitated, yet thematically narrower National Strategy on IBM – but any such processes ought to equally include and encompass Lebanon’s other security institutions.
Finally, security sector support should better enable transparency and accountability of the institutions to the public they are meant to protect. Lebanon has a rich civil society, an active media landscape and a vibrant private sector. Their awareness of and involvement in questions concerning security governance should be welcomed as an opportunity to enhance state-society relations, ultimately contributing towards donors’ objectives of a stable and prosperous Lebanon.
Money spent on security sector support without a vision for a future Lebanon will remain insufficient and palliative in nature. Strategic thinking, in partnership with Lebanese society, should be front and centre in Europe’s mindset going forward.
The research underpinning this article was supported by a research grant from the UK FCDO’s Cross-Border Conflict, Evidence, Policy, and Trends (XCEPT) programme.
Note: This article gives the views of the authors, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: European Union
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