When will the blade of 49.3 drop? The deputies begin this Monday in the hemicycle the tumultuous examination of the 2023 budget project, a text that the Government is already preparing to approve without a vote, in the absence of an absolute majority for the Macronists.
Tariff shield in 45,000 million euros
The session should open at 4:00 p.m. with the intervention of the ministers and the different political groups. Then the Assembly will begin, probably on Tuesday, to address the more than 3,000 amendments presented to this first part of the finance bill (PLF), which includes in particular a “tariff shield” of 45,000 million euros against the explosion of energy prices.
MEPs must first consider the trajectory of the 2023-2027 budget. Less important than the PLF, this programming bill was rejected in committee last week to the chagrin of the government, which fears consequences for payments of European funds to France.
It is a whole budget marathon that begins until December, wrapped in the uncertainties of this new effervescent Assembly, since the legislative elections in June that deprived Emmanuel Macron of the absolute majority.
Too expensive for the right, “austerity” for the left, “subjected” to Brussels according to RN: the opposition has ruled out supporting this 2023 budget. And the “Bercy dialogues”, organized in September by the Government with deputies from all over the world The sides have not changed at all.
An inevitable 49.3?
The recourse to article 49.3 of the Constitution seems, therefore, inevitable. In the hands of the executive, this tool allows a text to be approved without a vote, unless a motion of censure is approved.
“Our responsibility will be to assume to compromise 49.3 early enough if the oppositions block the debate tomorrow, noon and night”, the leader of the Renaissance deputies Aurore Bergé hammered on Sunday.
Based on optimistic economic assumptions, this finance bill plays a balancing act between the desire to “protect” the French against rising energy prices and not increase debt.
The course set is to contain the public deficit to 5% of GDP, despite the “tariff shield”, an increase in teachers or the creation of more than 10,000 civil servant positions, including 3,000 police and gendarmes.
The tax on “super profits” returns to the table
“No new spending” can be introduced during the parliamentary debate if it is not “financed to the nearest euro”, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire has already warned, leaving little grain to grind.
However, the oppositions will not hesitate to advance their pawns.
The idea of taxing the “crisis speculators” will return in the hemicycle. The left-wing opposition Nupes (LFI, PS, PCF and EELV) hopes to obtain a referendum on these “super profits” but proposes without delay a tax on the exceptional profits of the largest companies.
Weakened by the Quatennens and Bayou affairs, the Nupes hope to bounce back on the social front, even if the government has stalled on pension reform, calling for a march “against the high cost of living” on October 16 .
The RN also promotes the taxation of “super profits”, but the majority rejects the idea of a new tax that targets all sectors of the economy. And it refers to the agreement that is being finalized at a European level to involve energy companies.
MEPs should also scrap the gradual abolition from 2023 of the CVAE, a production tax. A measure contested by the Nupes, who expect allies from the right on this point, but also by deputies of the majority sensitive to the discontent of the local entities that collect this tax.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne tried to calm things down on Friday by promising an increase in her global operating grant (DGF), to 320 million euros instead of the 210 million initially announced.
With so many sensitive issues, “something is going to happen every day in the hemicycle. Many times we will be defeated,” he fears a frame of the presidential majority.
The Macronists tested it in committee, where they lost a series of votes, including the rejection of the introductory article that sets the goal of containing the public deficit at 5% of GDP.
Source: BFM TV
