The right-wing dominated Senate adopted the 2023-2027 budget planning bill overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, subject to more ambitious cuts in public spending than those planned by the government.
This “rudder” text had been rejected at the end of October in the first reading by the National Assembly, due to the lack of an absolute majority of the Macronists.
The government cannot decide to drop its bill.
The deficit below 3% of GDP from 2025
The Senate has validated the bill, but revised. Deputies and senators must soon seek a compromise on this text, so that it can continue its parliamentary progress favorably.
According to the version validated overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, the public deficit will have to fall below 3% of GDP from 2025, and not in 2027 as the Government forecasts. The “ordinary” expenditure of the central administrations must decrease by 0.5% in volume each year from 2023, as well as the expenditure of the communities.
The “new spending reduction trajectory” is “more serious and more ambitious”, praised rapporteur-general Jean-François Husson (LR).
“You have proposed (…) 37 billion euros in spending cuts, we are going to say that it is ambitious, very ambitious,” Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire had previously launched, but said he expected a compromise.
5% reduction in public employment
But senators, by contrast, went further during the session, voting on an Independents amendment to provide for a 5% cut over the entire five-year period of public employment, rather than general stability as the government wants. .
As for the communities, they rejected “the unacceptable surveillance and sanction system” included in article 23 of the text to guarantee compliance with the evolution of local spending.
In another aspect, an environmental reform was approved so that the national energy policy integrates the “economic means necessary to achieve the objectives” set.
The left, however, spoke out against the entire bill, which reflects “an obsession with lowering taxes” to the detriment of “voluntary policies” according to the socialists. The communists denounced “austerity” and an “overcoming of the senatorial majority”.
Source: BFM TV
