2023-09-22 20:30:47
This has been going on for almost four years. Every year since 2019, Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the regional authority in charge of transport, alerts the government of its significant financial needs, to date not covered by its revenues. Extensions of metro lines and the RER E, creation of tramways, new trains, launch of the Grand Paris Express… to finance all these projects, IDFM’s spending will explode. The current budget (nearly 11 billion euros per year) must be supplemented with new tax resources, to the tune of 500 million euros from 2024, and up to 1.5 billion by 2031.
This “psychodrama” should finally find its outcome next week. According to consistent sources, the government and IDFM are preparing to sign a financial memorandum of understanding to break the deadlock. Probably Tuesday September 26, the day when the IDFM board of directors will meet. For 2024 and beyond, the agreement currently being finalized provides for a shared effort by all contributors, with additional resources from businesses (increase in the Mobility Payment), tourism (tourist tax), as well as a reduction 50% of the envelope donated by IDFM to the Société du Grand Paris, which is piloting the construction of the future metro network.
Finding “lasting answers”
According to the specialized letter Mobitelex this Friday, communities (region, Paris, departments) should increase their participation “in inflation +2%, or a total of 4.8% according to current State forecasts for 2024 inflation (they are establish at +2.8%). The region would thus add “34 million euros”, and Paris “around fifteen million”. Worried, the association of Ile-de-France departments (ADIF) issued a press release this Friday. They “wish to be associated with discussions between the State and the Region. They request an urgent meeting with Marc Guillaume, prefect of the Ile-de-France region and Valérie Pécresse, to discuss the question of the short and long term financial balance of public transport in the capital region.
Without financing guarantees, Valérie Pécresse has regularly stated that she does not intend to put into service future line extensions (11, 14 and RER E) and the reinforced offer for the Olympic Games (200 million euros). As early as July, the two parties agreed not to relive the crisis at the end of 2022, where the State had granted an extension of 200 million euros at the last minute to contain the increase in Navigo to +11 .8%.
This time, the recommended solutions must provide “sustainable answers” to the financing of the Ile-de-France networks for the decade to come. Matignon and the region are in unison to maintain the current “distribution key” of the Ile-de-France transport budget. Companies with more than 11 employees provide 48% of resources, followed by travelers (33%), communities (15%), the State (2%) and other miscellaneous income (2%). “I am asking the government for 500 million euros in tax revenue in the 2024 finance bill,” declared Valérie Pécresse in Le Parisien, August 28.
Amendments to the finance law then adoption by 49.3?
The upcoming memorandum of understanding does not solve everything. The modification of taxation necessarily involves the future finance law, the examination of which must begin in parliament on Wednesday. And the latest news is that the proposals contained in the agreement are absent from the finance bill (PLF)… They could be subject to amendments in the fall, before the final vote on the budget. Unless Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne uses 49.3 again to have her finance law adopted without a vote.
Transport users will only know the new 2024 prices in December, after the debate on IDFM’s budgetary guidelines in mid-October. A further increase seems inevitable. “But I want Navigo’s increases to be as moderate as possible,” reaffirmed Valérie Pécresse.
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