Remarks by Federica Mogherini at the press point with Mr Gebran Bassil, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lebanon

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Minister, it is really a pleasure to welcome you here in Brussels again as it is always a pleasure for me to visit you in Beirut as I did so many times.

First of all, it is a pleasure to welcome you here today because we can celebrate something good for Lebanon and for the entire region: having a President in Lebanon who I had the occasion to congratulate as I had the pleasure to congratulate Prime Minister designate [Saad] Hariri.

But most of all because this hopefully unblocks the political situation in the country and this is something that for the European Union is extremely positive. How many times we have discussed about the need to move forward with the election of a new President as a way of opening a space for all political parties to engage constructively in dialogue and share the responsibility to address the needs of Lebanese people, all the Lebanese people. So, first of all, congratulations for that and we are really looking forward to working even more together in the future with the new institutions.

Secondly, and let me add, we really believe here, and we discussed this again several times, that national unity is and will remain crucial for the future of Lebanon, having the new government to guarantee the stability of the country in this critical phase also in the region and with the upcoming  parliamentary elections in 2017 also another key moment for Lebanon's democracy and  hope that the legislative framework should be agreed in a constructive spirit among all.

But the second reason to celebrate today is because the Partnership Priorities and the Compact have just been adopted. And Lebanon is the first country with whom the European Union is signing this very ambitious strategic framework. We are very keen to implement the commonly identified priorities and commitments. And I am confident that this will result in a strengthened partnership, even deeper than before between the European Union and Lebanon, building on the very important common work we have done in the last decade.

So today's decision is a clear political sign of the European Union's commitment and special relationship to Lebanon, not only in supporting Lebanon with the impressive work it is doing in hosting Syrian refugees - a work that we are supporting, allocating more than EUR 778 million in assistance to refugees from Syria in Lebanon but also to the hosting communities in Lebanon because we know very well it is essential to support the hosting communities in their work. And this is on top of our bilateral assistance that is ongoing.

So today I think we have again a lot of work to take stock of but also to continue, and this is only limiting my comments to the bilateral relations and to the internal developments in the country.  

We will also discuss regional issues, but as we have not done so yet I will skip that comment for our public communication. But one of the reasons why it is so important for me to have Minister Bassil here with me today is because the European Union has started talks on the future of Syria and Lebanon is obviously a key interlocutor for us in this respect. So, we will have the pleasure of exchanging on this as well but again, let me welcome you very warmly saying that we appreciated very much the election of President [Michel] Aoun and we look forward to work together even further, implementing the Compacts and the Partnership priorities but also on all the files we have on our common agenda.

Thank you.