EU Official Meets Senior Officials, Stresses Solidarity with Lebanon

Michel Barnier, a member of the European Commission, who is responsible for internal market and services, stressed on Saturday that Lebanon is passing through a delicate situation.

“Lebanon is in need for the solidarity of the French people... And the European Union,” Barnier said after holding talks with Prime Minister Najib Miqati at the Grand Serail.

Lebanon plunged in a political crisis last month when the March 14 opposition announced its decision not to sit at the dialogue table with Hizbullah, and boycotted all parliamentary activity after it blamed Miqati's government on the assassination of Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch chief Wissam al-Hasan.

March 14 also called for the resignation of the cabinet and the formation of a neutral salvation government following al-Hasan's Oct. 19 killing in a car bomb explosion in Beirut's Ashrafiyeh district.

The two officials also discussed the bilateral ties and the developments in the region in presence of Economy and Trade Minister Nicolas Nahhas.

“We have tackled the conditions of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the region, it is a difficult humanitarian matter,” Barnier noted.

Lebanon is divided between factions that support Syrian President Bashar Assad and those backing the revolution against him, a legacy of the nearly three decades when Damascus all but ruled Lebanon, until 2005.

There are now 128,841 displaced Syrians in Lebanon, either registered or are in the process of registration, with nearly 7,000 registered in the last week alone, according to the latest weekly report of the U.N. refugee agency.

Earlier, the official met with President Michel Suleiman at the Baabda Palace.

Barnier proposed on Suleiman to press forward the establishment of an economic zone among the Arab countries, expressing the EU's readiness to offer the technical support for such a move.