The Daily Star BEIRUT: Prime Minister Saad Hariri opened the Lebanese Diaspora Energy Conference in Paris Saturday in a televised speech. “Lebanon can continue as before, with outdated laws and no reforms,” Hariri said, “we need to improve the labor market, implement real reforms to fight corruption and create jobs.” He said that Lebanese should threaten the candidates for the parliamentary elections with reforms. “If I don’t deliver [reforms] then don’t vote for me.” He expressed his thanks to the French government and the outcome of the CEDRE conference. “But the most important thing for me is reform, reform, and reform.” He said that while the Syrian crisis did affect the Lebanese government, the impact would have been less burdensome if there were reforms. “We must not wait every time to reach a problem or an economic collapse and then ask for funds from countries. We have to reform and then if there is an economic crisis beyond our control, then we ask for conferences,”he said. “It is your right to vote, and your duty to vote, so don’t lose it by not participating [in the elections],” Foreign Ministry Gebran Bassil was quoted saying by the state-run National News Agency. He told expatriates that he doesn’t accept their being called expatriates anymore, saying “you are Lebanese.”

He said these conferences and the diaspora are helping the government spread diplomacy. “I agree with [Bassil], you are the main force and our weapon. There might be political differences, but you need to stay united alongside Lebanon,” Hariri added. “I have prepared a bill to amend the name of the Foreign Ministry to the Foreign Affairs, Diaspora and International Cooperation Ministry,” he said, ostensibly as a way to affirm the Lebanese identity of expatriates instead of alienating it. The LDE conference is a regular convention that aims to bring Lebanese around the world together and one was already held in Ivory Coast earlier this year. The next conference will be held on May 10 to May 12 later this year. However, both Finance and Public Works and Transport ministers Ali Hasan Khalil and Youssef Fenianos respectively boycotted the conference. “We are against conferences that try to influence people or political parties in the [parliament] elections, and we are against exploiting expatriates in the election campaign,” Fenianos was quoted saying by the NNA