The caretaker Cabinet convened Monday at the Grand Serail to discuss the much delayed 2023 state budget.

The Council of Ministers’ General-Secretariat received the budget draft law from the Finance Ministry last week, and cabinet will hold successive sessions to discuss and approve it.

French Envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian will arrive Tuesday in Lebanon on a two-day visit to meet with Lebanese officials and leaders, including Maronite Patriarch Beshara al Rahi and Speaker Nabih Berri, media reports said.

Le Drian will start his tour in Lebanon with a visit to Berri during which the two will discuss the national dialogue over the presidential file, al-Akhbar newspaper reported Monday.

Hezbollah central council member Sheikh Nabil Qaouq on Monday stressed that his party is “keen on consensus, because Hezbollah’s priority is halting the collapse and deterioration and saving the country.”

“But the other camp’s priority is employing the collapse and exploiting it for political objectives,” he added.

Russia is communicating with former Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat regarding the presidential file and it has informed several Arab capitals of its support for Suleiman Franjieh’s election as president, a media report said.

“Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov raised the issue in a previous meeting with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan, asking him to relay a direct message in this regard from President Vladimir Putin to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” al-Akhbar newspaper quoted sources as saying.

Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement are holding dialogue without preconditions regarding the two parties’ presidential candidates, a media report said.

“Hezbollah is listening to the FPM’s opinion on the presidential file in light of the results of the June 14 session,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported.

A technical extension of Central Bank chief Riad Salameh’s term, his reappointment to the post or tasking him with acting in caretaker capacity “are all impossible ideas that no one can tolerate,” Speaker Nabih Berri has reportedly said.

As for Salameh’s four vice governors, Berri said that the best move would be their “resignation and their acting in caretaker capacity until the appointment of a new governor and new vice governors at a later stage,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Monday.

Caretaker PM Najib Mikati met Monday at the Grand Serail with Central Bank vice governors Wassim Mansouri, Bashir Yakzan, Salim Chahine and Alexander Mouradian.

The meeting was also attended by caretaker Deputy PM Saade Chami and caretaker Finance Minister Youssef Khalil.

French presidential envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian will arrive in Beirut on Tuesday and will amend the roadmap he had launched on his first visit, an informed source said.

French presidential envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian will return to Beirut on Monday after presenting to French President Emmanuel Macron and French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna his report on the outcome of talks with the Lebanese, regional and international parties, sources in Paris said.

The five-nation group on Lebanon met in Doha on Monday to “discuss a single matter: moving to the choice of the third candidate – Army Commander General Joseph Aoun,” informed sources said.

The group discussed “means to convince the Shiite Duo, specifically Hezbollah, with this nomination, studying a list of pressures that can be exerted in the coming period to achieve this objective, which included a lot of ideas, among them barring tourists from visiting Lebanon to undermine the touristic season,” the sources told al-Akhbar newspaper in remarks published Friday.