The president of the National Assembly’s Finance Committee, Eric Coquerel (LFI), and the rapporteur-general, Charles de Courson (Liot), are leaving Bercy once again empty-handed. They both arrived at the Ministry of Finance midday on Wednesday to receive the letters on the 2025 budget ceiling, which they refused to consult on Tuesday in Matignon.
Last July, the two members of the Finance Committee had already requested these same documents from Matignon.
“Essential” documents for the Budget
Defending this “constitutional right” of MPs, Eric Coquerel said that “there is no example” of Bercy having refused these documents to those responsible for the Finance Committee.
These ceilings, which set the maximum spending limits for ministries, “are essential to begin doing the necessary work on the budget,” he said, adding: “We would have preferred that they had been brought to us in good condition and properly in our office,” rather than denouncing them in front of the press.
The two men said on Tuesday they were “angry” at not being able to obtain the documents, claiming they were only “preparatory documents” for the budget.
Ceiling letters already sent to the ministries
The two MPs arrived on foot at the rue de Varenne from the National Assembly at around 12:30, the same time on Wednesday. They were not greeted by the new Prime Minister Michel Barnier, who was absent at the time, but by his chief of staff, Baptiste Rolland, and by the Secretary General of the Government, Claire Landais, whom they had asked, since they had not been able to obtain the letters from the ceiling, to at least be able to “consult them”.
These documents were communicated to the ministries in August by the resigning government, but not to the Finance Committee officials who had been requesting them ever since. Matignon had been given an ultimatum: if they did not receive them by Monday, they would go and collect them themselves.
Source: BFM TV
