Posted Dec 14 2022 at 19:03Updated 14 Dec. 2022 at 19:21
When Emmanuel Macron declared in October that he wanted to forge “alliances” with LR, many within the presidential camp had imagined that the public finance file was the ideal candidate for such an enterprise. The ace ! The majority and the parliamentary right will record, this Thursday, the failure of their attempt to compromise on the public finance programming law (LPFP), now doomed to be buried.
A joint committee between deputies and senators will be held in the morning, but this is bound to lead to an impasse according to several sources. “It will fail”, confirms, fatalistic, Jean-François Husson (LR), the general rapporteur of the Budget in the Senate. “We spent hours negotiating, to achieve nothing in the end, it’s quite frustrating,” said a source within the majority.
Objective of 3% in 2027
This programming law must outline the budgetary trajectory of France between now and the end of the five-year term, the executive stating the objective of bringing the public deficit back below the bar of 3% of GDP by 2027. Assembly as in the Senate, the parliamentary right was opposed to the text. First, because it imposed constraints on local communities. And then because the savings effort was deemed insufficient, the LR senators even demanding the return of the deficit to below 3% of GDP from 2025.
Anxious to find a compromise, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, had given pledges on the first point by announcing at the end of November to abandon the mechanism which limited the expenses of the communities. But differences have persisted in recent days on the second point.
Initially, LR demanded 37 billion euros in additional savings by 2027 to restore public finances, before reducing its claims to 15 billion in recent days. On the executive side, we were ready to make an additional effort of 7 to 8 billion, but without going any further.
Impasse at Bercy
The joint joint commission was postponed last week to find a way through, the government hoping that the end of the election for the presidency of LR would break the impasse. But without result: a last lunch Tuesday at Bercy between Jean-François Husson, Jean-René Cazeneuve (Renaissance) his counterpart in the Assembly, and the ministers Bruno Le Maire and Gabriel Attal did not lead to anything concrete.
Both sides blame each other for the failure. “There is a certain inconsistency at LR. They are calling for billions of euros in long-term savings, and at the same time they have not stopped voting for additional spending for the 2023 budget”, criticizes Jean-René Cazeneuve. The elected representative of the Gers underlines that “the return below 3% in 2027 is already based on substantial savings”. “We were not going to bow down to LR for a text which would have been insincere in the end with false promises”, adds a government source.
LRs unhappy with the budget
At LR, we defend the seriousness of the approach to public finances. “There is no real will among the majority to save money. Again this week there was an announcement of new expenditure for carpooling, the money falls from the stagecoach every day, ”attacks Jean-François Husson. The senator also took umbrage at the fact that “the government has retained practically nothing from the Senate’s proposals for the 2023 budget adopted by 49.3”.
At the end of this long series, France will in any case once again make a bad impression in terms of public finances in Brussels: it will be the only one within the euro zone not to have a programming law. “We are going to burn political capital because of this”, recognizes, fatalistic, a member of the executive. Small consolation, the current crisis has undoubtedly already rendered obsolete the programming laws of our neighbors, sent in the spring before the outbreak of inflation.