Expected spending on the horizon. The Senate, dominated by the right-wing opposition, addressed the Government’s budget for 2024 on Thursday with the firm intention of saving. The executive may discard his proposals without further ado.
Senators will face almost three weeks of intense budget debates in the upper house before the solemn vote scheduled for December 12 on this finance bill for 2024 (PLF). This budget has already gone through a tumultuous parliamentary journey before its arrival at the Luxembourg Palace: the Government, without an absolute majority in the National Assembly, had to resort twice to article 49.3 of the Constitution to approve it without a vote, truncating the process Debates in the hemicycle.
The executive, which easily resisted the opposition’s no-confidence motions in Parliament, is now in the eye of Brussels to fulfill its commitments. And Bercy is eagerly awaiting Standard and Poor’s decision on the French debt rating on December 1.
“Crimson red”
In this context, “senators can propose additional savings, they will always be attentive to me”, declared the Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire, defending his budget with 16 billion in savings, a deficit reduced in 2024 to 4.4% of GDP . “This is good, the Senate, with a majority of the center and right, seems more determined than ever to restore budget balance.
Problem: nothing guarantees that the executive will maintain any of the measures voted on in the upper house. The text seems to have been promised with 49.3 votes during a new reading in the National Assembly in December and the government will only be able to retain the amendments that suit it. “The government must listen to us!” Mr. Husson is outraged: “If he doesn’t do it, it’s because he has blinders on and has already lost the game.” “No one is fooled. In the Assembly, the Government says ‘shut up!’, and in the Senate ‘Always speak’,” lamented environmentalist Thomas Dossus.
“Greater solidarity of the luckiest”
A Senate-executive agreement still appears to be underway on the domestic electricity price shield: the executive wants to maintain it on a large scale in 2024, the senatorial right proposes to restrict it by targeting only “low incomes”, with one billion euros of savings expected. “We are willing to accept” this “good proposal”, as long as “rates do not increase more than 10% in February 2024”, said Bruno Le Maire.
The centrist group, an ally of LR in the Senate, for its part intends to differentiate itself from the right by introducing “fiscal justice” measures: Senator Bernard Delcros called for “greater solidarity among the luckiest” and will propose taxing “super profits.” ” and buybacks of shares of large companies. He will have support on the left of the chamber.
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Housing, considered a “social bomb” by many parliamentarians, will be one of the central points of this budget, as will local authorities, often pampered by the “chamber of territories.” The senatorial majority will propose an exceptional endowment of 100 million euros for the departments, while numerous mayors have paraded in the Senate in recent days on the sidelines of their Congress in Paris.
For once, the Senate will broadly defend a tax, called the “streaming tax,” intended for online music platforms to contribute to the financing of the National Music Center (CNM). Finally, several political groups presented an unprecedented amendment to introduce a “minimum unit price” for alcohol, a public health measure that aims to combat excessive consumption while preserving the local wine industry, whose lobby is well established in the Luxembourg Palace.
Source: BFM TV
