2023-06-27 08:10:00
The Senate with a right-wing majority embarks on Tuesday in the examination of the new military programming law (LPM) 2024-2030, of which it wants to accelerate the pace of expenditure, while remaining within the planned envelope of 413 billion euros over seven years.
The examination of the text of the Minister of the Armies Sébastien Lecornu is planned in principle until Thursday. Some 280 amendments were tabled, including 46 by the government.
The executive hopes for final adoption before July 14.
Widely adopted at first reading by the deputies, the LPM should make it possible to modernize nuclear deterrence. Thirty billion must cover inflation.
The credits must also improve the treatment of troops and their families, and make it possible to improve the conditions of the reservists, to double the workforce (80,000 volunteers targeted for 2030).
The LPM, which will be updated in 2027 by a vote of Parliament, also intends to “modernize” the military apparatus: 10 billion for innovation, 6 billion for “space”, 4 billion for “cyber”, 5 billion for drones…
In the context of the war in Ukraine, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Christian Cambon (LR) hailed the “substantial effort” made by France, with an LPM up 40% compared to compared to the period 2019-2025. But he noted “grey areas”.
Echoing the criticisms of the opposition in the Assembly, the senators adopted in committee a budgetary trajectory which leads, like that of the government, to a budget of 69 billion in 2030, but according to a more regular rate of progression.
It is accelerating the effort from 2024 “to immediately take into account the geostrategic turning point represented by the war in Ukraine”, according to Christian Cambon.
Senators have forecast an increase of 3.5 billion euros in 2024 (against 3.1 forecast), then 3.6 billion every year (instead of 3 billion until 2027 and 4.3 from 2028 , i.e. after the end of the five-year term).
“Sovereignty Savings Account”
This new adjustment of the “steps” should make it possible in particular to reverse the delays in the delivery of equipment, including the armored vehicles of the Scorpion program.
The leader of the LR senators Bruno Retailleau makes this acceleration of the budgetary trajectory “a sine qua non”.
“Our military spending must remain sustainable for our public finances,” insisted Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu.
The senators also propose the creation on January 1, 2024 of a “sovereignty savings account”, exempt from tax and social security contributions, intended to finance defense companies.
They also included in the text “annual marches of 3,500 additional operational reservists”, reinforced the role of Parliament in controlling updates to the LPM or even deliveries of equipment, and want to accelerate the end of the Sentinel system, the counter-terrorism support operation.
The majority communist CRCE group will defend a motion to reject the text as a whole, which will undoubtedly be rejected. He criticizes a programming law “hastily presented, two years before the end of the current LPM”.
Like most senators, the Communists regret that it was not preceded by a “White Book”, setting out the strategic choices.
The senators have also planned in committee that the next LPM be preceded by a “White Paper on Defense and National Security”.
The PS group fears for its part “a trompe-l’oeil increase in credits”, noting that out of the envelope of 413 billion euros, “nearly 100 billion euros come from the previous LPM, shortened by two years”.
27/06/2023 08:08:53 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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