The question was decided in recent days. Despite the serious drift in public accounts and pressure from certain deputies, the Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, has given up on passing a corrective finance law by the end of the year. Too complicated politically, and not absolutely essential financially, according to the executive. The information, revealed by L’Opinion, was confirmed, Saturday October 5, at Monde.
Read also | Political news, live: Michel Barnier says he “needs everyone” within the government camp
Add to your selections
On paper, the adoption of a corrective finance law, also called a “collective budget”, seemed a common sense solution to the spiraling public deficit. Laws of this type are the only ones that make it possible to significantly modify the state budget voted in December during the year.
In February, when the first signals showed that the 2024 budget would be very difficult to maintain, Bruno Le Maire, then Minister of the Economy, campaigned to have such a law passed before the summer. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, rejected his proposal, so as not to overshadow the campaign for the European elections in June with bad news on the public accounts. A faithful soldier, Bruno Le Maire did not resign, however, and tried to correct the situation by other means. After a decree canceling, in February, 10 billion euros of credits, other expenditure of 16.5 billion euros was provisionally frozen in July.
A widening public deficit
When Michel Barnier arrived in Matignon on September 5, the question arose even more acutely. While the public deficit is widening day after day, and risks reaching, over the whole year, 6.1% of gross domestic product (GDP) instead of decreasing as expected, it seemed logical to prepare a collective budget. It would have made it possible to put a strong brake on spending, by definitively canceling several billion euros of credits. It would also have been an opportunity to raise, from 2024, certain taxes, such as the tax on the profits of electricity companies, or to tax share buybacks, without waiting for 2025. Finally, such an amending law would have offered Michel Barnier the possibility of immediately translating into reality his desire to reorient economic and budgetary policy.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Michel Barnier plans a third increase in taxes and a two-thirds reduction in spending to curb budgetary slippage
Add to your selections
In recent weeks, many officials have pushed the new prime minister to choose this option. Including Bruno Le Maire again. “We can’t wait until 2025”, also pleaded one of his followers, the Macronist deputy for Bas-Rhin Charles Sitzenstuhl. Eric Coquerel (La France insoumise), the president of the finance committee at the National Assembly, also demanded that emergency budgetary decisions go through a debate in Parliament rather than through decrees or orders.
You have 49.05% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
Related News :