The government is studying “all avenues” to pass the pension reform, including “as part of the social security budget bill” for 2023, its spokesman Olivier Véran said on Wednesday.
This eventuality “would not exclude that there is a broad consultation of all civil society and social actors,” he assured. In Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne’s entourage, it is said that “the modalities (to approve the reform, editor’s note) are not resolved.” President Emmanuel Macron recently stated that the pension reform could not wait any longer and should come into force in the summer of 2023.
“No tax increases and no increase in debt”
Olivier Véran indicated that there was time for the consultation before “the presentation of the budget texts that will take place only on September 26 during the Council of Ministers.” He reaffirmed “the will” of the government “to work with the opposition and the majority upstream, to co-build what can be, without denying the great fundamental principles that support the mandate of the President of the Republic, that is, no increases in taxes and no increase in debt.
Many members of the majority are already convinced that it will be necessary to go through article 49-3 of the Constitution for the budget to be approved, in the absence of an absolute majority in the Assembly. This article, which allows a text to be adopted without a vote, except for the approval of a motion of censure, “has been used dozens and dozens of times, under right-wing or left-wing regimes” and “therefore we are not in a historical fact” , underlined Olivier Véran, reaffirming “the hope” that “opposition parliamentarians can” vote or abstain on the draft budget.
LFI, LR and RN have already warned that they will not vote in favor and, after a meeting on Tuesday in Bercy with representatives of parliamentarians, the majority of the opposition judged that the Government had no intention of considering their proposals.
Source: BFM TV
