It's an old joke that runs around the Ministry of Economy and Finance. “At Bercy, they say that annual growth forecasts take 0.1 points per floor. And there are six floors…”, smiles a former minister, who prefers to remain anonymous. A joke, perhaps, but one to which many professionals recognize some truth. In other words, the objectives displayed on the ministers' floor often turn out to be too optimistic, and sometimes far from the figures put forward by the trimmers responsible for establishing the forecasts.
How can we avoid these overly proactive figures, which can lead to violent disappointments a few months later, when the hoped-for 1.5% actually falls to 0.9%? Perhaps by breaking Bercy's current monopoly on the production of public revenue and expenditure forecasts. This role could be entrusted to an independent body such as the High Council of Public Finances (HCFP). At a minimum, the High Council could be associated with the work of Bercy.
This is, in any case, the iconoclastic proposal presented, Tuesday January 21, by Pierre Moscovici, the first president of the Court of Auditors, on the occasion of his hearing by the commission of the National Assembly responsible for understanding the slippage of public finances in 2023 and 2024. “We absolutely must review the way we develop our forecasts,” holding them more “far removed from the hubris of politics”, affirmed the former socialist minister.
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