Towards a budget presentation postponed by eight days, a first under the Fifth Republic

This is one of the collateral effects of the dissolution of the National Assembly and then of Emmanuel Macron’s procrastination: for the first time under the V^e Republic, the government is preparing to not respect the legal deadlines provided for the examination of the State budget by Parliament. Considering it impossible to make his mark on the draft budget for 2025 within the timetable set by law, Michel Barnier has decided to give himself some time. The new Prime Minister is now planning to submit the draft finance bill to the National Assembly on October 9, forgetting the deadline of October 1^er october. “It is a path that is being studied, in fact”Michel Barnier’s entourage declared to World, confirming information from Politico.

This immediately strains relations between Matignon and parliamentarians, who nevertheless hold the fate of the future government in their hands, given the lack of a majority supporting Michel Barnier. “The longer they wait [à présenter le budget], the more the parliamentary debate risks being limited”warned Eric Coquerel, the president of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly for La France Insoumise (LFI), to Agence France-Presse. “Violating an organic law by not respecting deadlines is a problem in itself,” Matthias Renault, National Rally (RN) MP for the Somme, is also annoyed.

In recent days, the heads of the finance committees in both the Assembly and the Senate had demanded that the meeting on 1^er October be honored, and asked to obtain precise information by then on the credits allocated to each ministry. Eric Coquerel had even threatened to come in person, Tuesday, to Matignon to collect these precious “ceiling letters”. To try to appease these decisive interlocutors, Matignon announced, Monday, that it would write them a letter. And promised to finally send them, by the end of the week, the “offprint”, a summary booklet on future state spending, which the law normally requires to be sent to Parliament before July 15. More than two months of delay announced, therefore.

The dissolution has shaken everything up

Since the beginning of the V^e Republic, in 1958, the budget calendar is particularly framed, with a double objective. It is a question of giving parliamentarians time to debate in depth this major annual text. But also to avoid that, for lack of a budget voted on time, the country is reduced to resorting as during the IV^e Republic to the “provisional twelfths”, with credits released drop by drop, month by month, until a global agreement is reached.

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