Budget: what are the “ceiling letters” that Eric Coquerel and Charles de Courson are demanding from Matignon?
For several days, MPs Eric Coquerel and Charles de Courson have been demanding that Matignon see the “ceiling letters”, key documents in the draft budget for 2025.
These are used to set the appropriations for ministries within the framework of the 2025 budget project.
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They left Matignon “angry”Having come to request key documents of the 2025 budget from the Prime Minister, the president of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, Eric Coquerel (LFI), and the general rapporteur Charles de Courson (Liot) left the residence of the head of government empty-handed this Tuesday midday. “We are quite stunned (…) because we were refused access to these documents”declared the rebellious deputy. “It is a constitutional right that is granted to the chairman of the Finance Committee and to the general budget rapporteur, we have been refused it”he added, threatening to go to Bercy on Wednesday to obtain satisfaction.
Essential letters for building the state budget
These “ceiling letters”, what are they for and what do they contain? They set the ceilings for credits and jobs that are allocated to each ministry. They are the ones that determine how much money is allocated to a ministry to carry out its projects and projects, according to the government’s political priorities. It is on this basis that the budget for the coming year is built.
It all begins in the spring, during the budget conferences where the credits and expenditures of the ministries are discussed with the Budget Directorate, discussions which are then the subject of political arbitration during the summer. Normally, the “ceiling letters” are sent to each ministry before July 15, and they are still discussed until the end of the month to “refine the distribution of credits and jobs to enable the drafting of budgetary documents annexed to the draft finance bill”indicates the Ministry of Economy. This year, because of the political situation and the resigning government, Gabriel Attal had announced on August 14 that these letters would be sent “in the next few days” to those concerned. But they had been prepared by a government that was no longer going to be in charge at the time of the budget examination, which had raised criticism.
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Have the “ceiling letters” been revised by Michel Barnier and his entourage? Several sources have reported that they would have kept the credits set by the outgoing government.
No obligation to transmit “ceiling letters” to MPs
This Tuesday, Matignon announced, as it did the day before in a letter addressed to the two deputies concerned, that it would send them “at the end of the week” “a reprint “with the big data taken from the ‘ceiling letters'”. He also indicates that the “ceiling letters” are never communicated to Parliament before the submission of the finance bill, and that this would even be contrary to the separation of powers. Constitutionalist Benjamin Morel confirms to TF1 and LCI that there is no “no obligation to transmit them” and that this “is part of good administrative practice”.
Eric Coquerel and Charles de Courson, whose functions give them the right to carry out on-site inspections and checks on budgetary documents, argue that their consultation would allow “to the finance commissioners to start working on the budget”.