MPs want the government to plan funding for the ecological transition in the long term

2023-09-22 18:14:06
Bruno Le Maire, during a press conference in Berlin, September 13, 2023. JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP

If global warming imposes a mountain of challenges, one of the thorniest of them is the perseverance of action. How can we reconcile the short term, subject to variations – rising prices, sectoral anger, elections, etc. – and long-term action?

On the one hand, the General Secretariat for Ecological Planning has calculated all the necessary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, sector by sector, to arrive at an overall decrease of 55% in 2030 compared to 1990. On the other hand, the political world re-discusses a budget once a year, without projecting green finances over several years.

To remedy this difference in pace, a group of majority deputies tabled, Thursday, September 21, an amendment to the public finance programming bill. Their idea is to create a new framework document, the multi-annual strategy for financing the ecological transition (SPFTE). “It must allow those who produce, invest, train and support to organize their strategy over several years”we can read in the presentation.

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This amendment comes from the heart of the presidential majority. It was thought up by two former advisers to Emmanuel Macron, Pierre Cazeneuve (Renaissance), deputy for Hauts-de-Seine, and David Amiel (Renaissance), deputy for Paris. It is co-signed by figures from the group, such as its president, Sylvain Maillard (Paris), the general budget rapporteur, Jean-René Cazeneuve, and around twenty members of the finance committee.

Slightly different proposal

When questioned, Matignon did not react. Without coming forward, the Ministry of Public Accounts does not reject the idea. During several meetings, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, said he was in favor of multi-year programming of this financing. One of his close friends, the deputy for Bas-Rhin Charles Sitzenstuhl, is also a co-signatory of the amendment. Not sure, however, that this proposal will be accepted. In the fall of 2022, an amendment by Pierre Cazeneuve to the same text proposed creating a multi-year programming law: it was voted on at first reading before disappearing.

This time, the proposal is a little different. Constrained by their relative majority which complicates the vote on broad texts, as evidenced by the uncertain fate of the programming law on energy and climate, these Macronists want to create a new government text to support multi-year energy programming, the national low carbon strategy and the national climate change adaptation plan. The first two are due to be presented this fall.

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