The first president of the Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici, said on Wednesday that he was “concerned” by the deterioration of public finances in France, considering the government’s growth forecast of 1% for 2023 “high” despite an economic situation grumpy
“The outlook for 2023 is even more degraded” than in 2022, a year marked by the war in Ukraine and the energy shock, he said when presenting his wishes for the new year.
“The year 2022 was not the year to leave at any price,” he continued, referring to the massive spending that began during the health crisis, extended by billions in aid to homes and companies to face inflation and the energy crisis.
“Degraded” public finances
In this context, the government’s growth forecast -1% for 2023 after a forecast of 2.7% the previous year- “remains high”, higher than the consensus of economists, although, according to Pierre Moscovici, “leading indicators are not as negative as expected”.
In order to sustainably reduce public debt (more than 110% of GDP) and the public deficit (expected to be 5% of GDP by the end of 2022), the Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, announced in January the organization from this year of annual reviews of public spending. The Government hopes to bring the public deficit back below the European limit of 3% of GDP in 2027, with a relatively stable debt on this horizon.
This exercise of annual reviews is “essential”, Pierre Moscovici stressed to journalists, while France is one of the euro zone countries whose “public finance situation is among the most degraded” and one of the leaders in terms of spending (around 57% of GDP).
For the head of the Court of Auditors, “the trajectory (…) still seems too unambitious”, with a debt that will be “almost at the level of 2022”. “This is not in line with the evolution of the European partners” who will be around 3% of GDP in public deficit from 2025, he added, deploring these “divergences”.
Source: BFM TV
