The Senate with a right-wing majority will examine as of Tuesday, after the National Assembly, the new military programming law (LPM) 2024-2030, with an endowment of 413,000 million euros over seven years, intended in particular to “prepare” and ” modernization” of the armed forces. The examination of the text of the Minister of the Armies Sébastien Lecornu is scheduled in principle until Thursday. The executive expects final adoption before July 14. In the context of the war in Ukraine, this law represents a 40% increase in the Defense budget compared to the period 2019-2025.
Widely adopted in the first reading by the deputies, the LPM should make it possible to modernize the nuclear deterrent, improve the treatment of troops and also invest in cybernetics, space and the seabed. Thirty billion must cover inflation.
An acceleration of the budget effort starting next year
Echoing the criticism of the opposition in the Assembly, the senators adopted in commission a budget path that leads, like that of the Government, to a budget of 69,000 million 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 that the war in Ukraine represents,” according to Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Christian Cambon (LR).
The senators have forecast an increase of 3,500 million euros in 2024 (compared to the 3.1 expected), then 3,600 million each year (instead of 3,000 million until 2027 and 4.3 from 2028, that is, after the end of the five-year period). In particular, the acceleration should make it possible to reverse delays in the delivery of equipment, including armored vehicles from the Scorpion program.
A “sovereignty savings account” for defense companies
The senators propose the creation on January 1, 2024 of a “sovereignty savings account”, exempt from taxes and contributions to social security, 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 LPM updates or even equipment deliveries, and want to speed up the end of the Sentinel system, the anti-terrorist support operation. .
Just over 200 amendments to the committee’s text were tabled. The CRCE group, mainly communist, will defend a motion to reject the text as a whole, which will undoubtedly be rejected.
Source: BFM TV
