The beginning of several weeks of high pressure for the executive. The Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, and the Minister of Public Accounts, Thomas Cazenave, announced this Wednesday morning the finance bill and the Social Security financing bill. It is expected that at the turning point the Bercy tenants will have to convince the opposition. The hypothesis seems unlikely and the use of 49.3 almost necessary.
• A budget that moderately tightens the nut
Forced to reduce spending following lower-than-expected growth forecasts and rising rates, future budgets have the appearance of a slimming regime. The Minister of Economy thus aspires to savings of 16,000 million euros, of which 10,000 million are linked to the gradual end of the energy tariff shield.
The same goes for the reform of unemployment insurance and the tightening of compensation rules, which should generate savings of 700 million euros.
The Social Security budget will be in the same boat. If the Minister of Public Accounts, Thomas Cazenave, assured “not to reduce health spending”, the pill could be bitter. For this reason, the Government is considering doubling the medical deductible paid in pharmacies, going from 50 cents to one euro per box.
The government, however, presents a green budget with 7 billion euros for the ecological transition. To finance it, it is necessary to eliminate “brown tax loopholes”, that is, tax advantages on particularly polluting fossil fuels.
• Oppositions that will not vote for this budget
Suffice it to say that this budget will not satisfy either the left, which considers it marked with the seal of austerity, or the right, which denounces too weak economies.
More generally, custom dictates that voting on the budget puts parliamentarians in the majority. In the LR ranks this option is also unthinkable.
“Mr Le Maire seems to constantly confuse income and expenses, which is worrying for an Economy Minister,” said the leader of LR deputies, Olivier Marleix, on France Info in mid-September.
Before specifying “in no case do we want to vote on the budget because we are not the majority.”
Éric Coquerel, who chairs the Finance Commission, was no more tender. The rebel deputy denounced in a press conference “a budget full of contradictions”, lamenting that “on the one hand the Government wants to invest in the ecological transition” and “on the other it sets the objective of reducing the public deficit to reduce it.” at 2.7%.
In the ranks of the macro-granddaughter we minimize criticism.
“When you are in the opposition, you don’t vote on the budget, you don’t have to look much further,” Jean-René Cazeneuve, Renaissance deputy and budget rapporteur, explained to us at the beginning of September.
• Of the inevitable 49.3
In this context, and in the absence of an absolute majority, the Government will necessarily have to resort to 49.3, that institutional cartridge that allows a text to be adopted without a vote.
“Surely we will have to resort to it this fall, because our country needs a budget,” Élisabeth Borne bluntly assumed. RTL since the beginning of the school year.
No number limitation for budget texts49.3, however, has a political consequence: that of allowing a motion of censure to be presented each time for the oppositions.
So far, none has overthrown Élisabeth Borne, due to the lack of agreement between all the oppositions in the National Assembly.
“We are not happy with the motion of censure,” said Olivier Marleix at the beginning of September, a way of closing the door on this option for the budget.
The only time Élisabeth Borne was really in danger was during the retreats and her use of 49.3 to approve this very controversial text. The result of the main motion of censure presented was decided until the last moment. The Prime Minister had saved her position by only 9 votes.
“I think that not many people really believe that the Borne could fall into the budget. But the multiple use of 49.3 in a complicated social context for the French is never very good,” acknowledges a Macronist deputy.
“The problem is the symbol. In the budget we have around ten 49.3 to use. It’s a lot, it gives the impression that we can’t convince,” however worries a ministerial advisor.
Source: BFM TV
