2023-06-16 16:14:32
How to meet the operating costs of new public transport services in Île-de-France? The question has been agitating elected officials and Ile-de-France communities for months, united within Île-de-France Mobilités. The regional authority in charge of transport, whose annual budget is now around 11 billion euros, is facing a dead end. Without tax tools at hand, it can only increase its resources through two means: the Navigo tariffs and the contribution of communities (departments, region).
In December 2022, the State came to the rescue by providing 200 million euros in extremis, making it possible to “contain” the surge in prices to around 12%. And after ? From 2024, the authority needs an additional 500 to 800 million to finance line extensions (11, 14, RER E), new trams (T10 and T12) and prepare for the launch of the Grand Paris Express. This burden cannot weigh only on travelers, argues the president of IDFM, Valérie Pécresse (LR), threatening not to open the new lines if they are not financed.
In search of “permanent solutions”
In order to imagine new mechanisms, “funding meetings” were organized in January by IDFM. Invited, the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, had promised “permanent” solutions, after the submission of a complete report commissioned from the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) and the General Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development ( CGEDD). This document will serve as a basis for discussions between the government and IDFM, before the next finance law discussed in parliament. Here are the main lines, to which Le Parisien had exclusive access.
The mission made it possible to establish “a globally shared diagnosis of IDFM’s financing needs: 500 million euros from 2024 and a peak of 1.5 billion euros in 2031”. This amount is lower than that advanced by IDFM, because it is counting on a strong recovery in attendance, and the return on the mobility payment (VM), this tax paid by employers. The report points to the weight of indebtedness and underlines the need to increase revenue. The first lever is pricing, with “a multi-year pricing policy” indexed to inflation. The other tool is the contribution of communities. “For more than ten years, the relative share of community contributions has declined in IDFM’s revenue due to the stronger dynamism of other revenue, such as the mobility payment”, estimates the IGF.
An “additional tourist tax”?
The report seems to rule out a significant increase in the mobility payment, provided by companies, judging it already “very dynamic”, with an estimated growth of 270 million in 2024. And although Clément Beaune affirmed Monday in Le Parisien that he did not want a “Lépine contest of multiple taxes”, the report draws up some avenues for new resources, such as “an additional tax to the tourist tax, which could represent 200 million euros from 2024; a tax on vehicles over 1.4 tonnes; an air passenger tax. State aid could also go indirectly through “a reduction in the remuneration due by IDFM to the Société du Grand Paris”, which is piloting the construction of the future metro.
All of these proposals will be discussed over the next few weeks, to then be examined by parliamentarians this summer or autumn.
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