Report: Monday's Cabinet Session to Address Garbage Crisis, Lebanese-EU Cooperation

Prime Minister Tammam Salam scheduled on Friday a cabinet session for Monday that will primarily focus on Lebanon's waste disposal crisis.

The agenda will also include a cooperation agreement between Lebanon and the European Union.

Ministerial sources told An Nahar that very few details are being revealed over the trash disposal draft deal, most notably on its cost and funding.

They said that it calls on municipalities to cover 25 percent of the cost, while the state will cover the remaining 75 percent.

This step will likely be met with the opposition of some officials who refuse to make the municipalities support such a burden, added the sources.

This opposition may go so far as to push some ministers to oppose the plan at cabinet or abstain from voting on it, they clarified.

Abstention from the vote will allow the bill to be passed, they explained.

The plan can be approved even if six ministers reject it, they said.

Lebanon was plunged in a waste management crisis following the closure of the Naameh landfill in July with officials failing to find an alternative to it.

This has consequently led to the pile up of the garbage on the streets throughout the country and with experts warning of the environmental and health hazards of the prolonged crisis.

The latest efforts to resolve the crisis have led to a preliminary deal that would see the exportation of the waste.