The review of public finances initiated at the beginning of summer by the government continues. This Thursday, Elisabeth Borne met in Matignon with the ministers interested in this exercise that should contribute to achieving the executive’s savings objectives, that is, achieving 12 billion euros of savings between now and 2024.
After ensuring from the beginning that “there is no taboo”, the Government now intends to examine aid to companies. He announced the color this Thursday promising to examine these aids line by line to define those that deserve to be kept and those that could be eliminated.
Identify effective aids
In 2022 alone, aid to companies represented a total cost of 110 billion euros for state coffers, whether in the form of reduced contributions, tax reductions or direct aid, according to the Budget Department.
The executive affirms that the mapping of this aid will allow us to know exactly who spends the money, who benefits, if there are duplicates… Once the exercise is over, the government, “like any ‘company’ head, will be able to distinguish between efficient expenses and those that must be reformed or even eliminated.
However, this is not a change of course in supply policy. The Government intends to maintain its course but that “does not prevent us from thinking and being intelligent in public spending,” we assure in the executive.
Businessmen are worried
An argument received with more or less reservations within the employers’ association. If some leaders do not want to add fuel to the fire, after a budget for 2024 that will have left traces on relations with the government, others denounce a new very negative signal, even going so far as to deplore what, according to them, seems to be the end of the competitiveness policy followed since Emmanuel Macron came to power:
“The Executive has changed its logic, it has changed its course, laments a senior management official. It is sacrificing long-term competitiveness to complete short-term budgets.” Some businessmen even go so far as to denounce “the intellectual fraud of the government, which wants to pass off tax increases on companies as savings.”
Source: BFM TV
