BEIRUT: The funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon saga might be finished, but the government’s next scheduled meeting could very well be derailed by ministers from the Free Patriotic Movement.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati this week opted to fund the STL via the Higher Relief Committee, which is under his purview. A no-show by FPM ministers helped torpedo last week’s Cabinet session, which was due to address the controversial issue of approving the government’s funding of the STL for 2011.

But even with the STL crisis over for now, FPM ministers might boycott another session of the Cabinet next week if a series of demands set down by FPM leader Michel Aoun are not met.

Culture Minister Gaby Layyoun said Thursday that “our five demands are the people’s demands, and if they don’t receive the importance they deserve, we won’t take part” in the Cabinet session.

The FPM is demanding more advanced weaponry for the Lebanese Army, government approval of a nationwide salary adjustment, the endorsement of senior-level appointments to the civil service, passing the 2012 draft budget on time, and addressing the issue of the state’s public finance account.

“We want a radical solution for these priority issues, at the top of which is the budget,” Layyoun said.

For his part, Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud, from the FPM bloc, said “the last five months have shown that we haven’t achieved anything, because there is a deliberate punishment of the Change and Reform bloc’s ministries.”

Abboud said a “new phase” in inter-government dealings had begun, “especially with regard to ministries that the prime minister might consider ‘less friendly’ than others.”

“We hope to establish very good relations with the prime minister, and the secretariat-general of the Cabinet,” Abboud said, speaking during a television interview.