BEIRUT: The Cabinet Friday reached a deal that effectively calls for a new tax law and for the 2017 state draft budget to be ratified without the audit of extra-budgetary spending, finally smoothing the path for the payment of public sector employees’ wages based on the new salary scale. In a quick reaction to the Cabinet agreement, reached during a session chaired by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, unions, representing thousands of civil servants, workers and schoolteachers, announced the suspension of a five-day nationwide strike that has paralyzed the country, closed schools and brought businesses at public institutions, autonomous utilities, municipalities and government hospitals throughout Lebanon to a standstill since last Monday.

“We hope the [Cabinet] decision to implement the salary scale is final and for all months and not just for October ... We hope we will not return to strikes again,” the Union Coordination Committee, which represents civil servants and public schoolteachers, said in a statement.

Air traffic controllers at Rafik Hariri International Airport also dropped a plan to briefly close Lebanese airspace Monday as part of pressure on the government to force its hand on the wage hike law.

Speaking to reporters after the two-hour extraordinary Cabinet session held at the Grand Serail, Hariri stressed that “political consensus” among rival parties was the key to resolving the crisis over the salary scale law in the wake of the Constitutional Council’s decision last week to revoke the tax hike law that would have funded the salary increases, estimated to cost $800 million annually.

“Thank God, after four Cabinet sessions, we reached today [Friday] an expedited draft law that includes the necessary tax amendments. We will send it to Parliament for approval as soon as possible,” Hariri said. “These amendments are essentially those that existed in the previous [tax] law, taking into account the observations of the Constitutional Council. We also agreed in the Cabinet on a formula to settle the extra-budgetary spending [in past years] that will enable us with Parliament to approve the budget quickly.”

He expected the auditing of extra-budgetary spending since 2005 to take between six months to a year. Lebanon has not had a state budget since 2005 due to political bickering, leading to extra-budgetary spending in billions of dollars.

The three ministers representing the Lebanese Forces were reported to have expressed reservations to the ratification of the state budget before the audit of extra-budgetary spending.

Addressing the Cabinet session, Hariri thanked officials for their hard work to reach an agreement on proposed solutions. “Consensus saved the country from a crisis and we were able to make decisions to maintain financial stability while securing the payment of the salaries and providing the required revenues,” Hariri said, according to a statement released by his media office.

Later, speaking to reporters after the meeting, Hariri said the government was determined to implement the salary scale law because it is entrusted with the implementation of laws endorsed by Parliament and the government is entrusted with the Constitution and, therefore, respects the Constitutional Council’s decision. “Third, the government is entrusted with the interests of all Lebanese, and most importantly the preservation of monetary and financial stability, which preserves the value of their income and savings,” he said.

Hariri sounded optimistic that Parliament would vote on draft laws agreed by the Cabinet. He praised President Michel Aoun for facilitating an agreement on the approval of the state budget ahead of the audit of extra-budgetary spending.

“Today the Cabinet showed solidarity and took the necessary decisions, and Parliament will do the same hopefully. I am talking to Speaker Nabih Berri and yesterday [Thursday] the president opened the doors for the solution and next week we go to Parliament to vote on all these laws,” Hariri said.

Aoun was reported to have pledged during Thursday’s Cabinet meeting to sign the state budget before a breakdown of extra-budgetary spending, thus ruling out the suspension of Article 87 in the Constitution which stipulates that public accounts must be balanced before a new state budget can be endorsed by Parliament. But Aoun’s stance sharply contradicted with the political party he founded, the Free Patriotic Movement, which has always insisted on a breakdown of extra-budgetary spending as a key to the ratification of the state budget.

“The problem that we faced was part of the constitutional institutions game, and therefore it is not an expression of a fundamental political problem or a problem of political consensus,” Hariri said. “I would like to say that if political consensus did not exist in the country, the nation would have entered a complex and difficult phase. Each side would have stood firm on its political position and we would have had a problem in the salary and rank scale and a problem to approve taxes and reach a consensus in the problem of extra-budgetary settlement.”

“This political consensus will determine how we govern this country and put the interests of the citizens before the interests of all parties and see how we can preserve the state finances, monetary system, the Lebanese pound and the rights of all Lebanese,” he added.

Yet, the prime minister criticized unions for taking to the street and calling for a nationwide strike, saying that the authorities were keen on implementing the salary scale law.

“I want to tell the unions that took to the street that I know that you had worries about the fate of the scale, but be sure that this government, with Parliament and with the president, were keen on approving the scale, reforms and taxes,” he said.

“It is this government, under this term, that approved the salary and rank scale, reforms and taxes. You have been protesting for five years without any result ... God willing, the salaries will be paid on the basis of the [new] scale,” the prime minister added.

Hariri dismissed reports of a presidential crisis pitting him or Berri against Aoun. “I am allied with President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and with all the political forces in this government,” he said.

The prime minister blasted Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil’s meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, saying he did not approve it. In his first comment on the Bassil-Moallem meeting, held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York last week, Hariri said that dealing with the Syrian regime was a contentious issue.

“There is a political disagreement on this issue [Syria]. You know my position. I am not ready to deal with the Syrian regime at all. This is clear and this government is clear and our policy statement is also clear,” he said, referring to the disassociation policy adopted by his Cabinet toward the Syrian conflict. “I confirm that there is a political disagreement, and I disagree with Minister Bassil meeting with Walid al-Moallem.”