Prime Minister Michel Barnier committed this Thursday, November 21, to mayors angry about the budget “cuts” planned for 2025, launching a major simplification project, but without loosening budgetary control, his first demand.
In front of 4,000 elected officials gathered at the close of the 106th Congress of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF), the excellent Brexit negotiator first extinguished criticism of responsibility for France’s budget defeat.
“It is not fair to point to municipalities and local authorities as if they were responsible for our deficit,” he declared, with thirteen ministers at his side.
The mayors and all the communities are protesting against the five billion euros of “savings” planned for 2025, a bill that they estimate at 11 billion and which they consider unsustainable rates, with a recessionary effect.
“End regulatory inflation”
In the spirit of the decentralization laws, Michel Barnier struck a chord with mayors, ensuring that he wanted to reverse their feeling of “being under regulatory and financial control” of the State.
Exalting the merits of the municipalities, “a reference for our fellow citizens,” he considered that their vocation is not to be “subcontractors of the State” but “more partners.”
The first vice president of the AMF, André Laignel, had previously called for “decolonizing” communities “to finally make time for local freedoms.”
The chief executive responded by promising “less talkative laws, that adjust to general objectives and that do not seek to resolve the details.” “Regulatory inflation must be put to an end,” Michel Barnier insisted, ensuring that excessive transpositions of European directives would be “examined one by one” and, in some cases, “eliminated.”
He also announced “four important decisions (…) in the coming weeks.” A circular will be issued asking administrations to propose as a priority laws that “set objectives” and “leave room for local authorities to interpret the rules.”
“Turning the pyramid” on “net zero artificialization”
The role of the National Council for the Evaluation of Standards (CNEN) will also be increased in clarifying laws “well before they are presented to Parliament”, while the effects of the laws on communities will be integrated into its impact study.
Finally, a simplification of the “stock of standards” regarding urban planning and the environment will be carried out.
The Prime Minister gave as an example the need to “turn around the pyramid” of the law on the “zero net artificialization” of soils (ZAN), which aims to stop the use of concrete in 2050.
“The ZAN should not work in cascade and mechanically from the region to the smallest municipality,” said Michel Barnier.
Regarding the budgetary effort requested from the communities, he recalled the concessions already made to the departments, in particular regarding the abandonment of the retroactive nature of the reduction in the rate of the VAT Compensation Fund (FCTVA).
For the rest, “the discussion continues in the Senate,” he limited himself to declaring, promising that “new amendments will evolve the initial text.”
“A lullaby”
Another great demand of the mayors fifteen months before the next municipal elections, the improvement of the conditions for exercising their mandate, will be the subject of a text that will be debated in the National Assembly in February, based on a Senate law proposal. which will be complemented with proposals “in terms of promoting connection with professional life, training and recycling.”
For rural municipalities, he promised to consider the possibility of expanding joint list voting to municipalities with less than 1,000 inhabitants, while reiterating his “openness” to the return of the accumulation of mandates.
“The conclusions are correct, the declared intentions are correct (…) but from the very specific measures of additional taxes by the State (…) we have not had a response and the rest will depend on what will emerge from the discussion in the Senate,” reacted AMF president David Lisnard.
“The prime minister was kind enough to sing us a lullaby, but he did not respond to the concerns of all the mayors or the anger of many,” criticized socialist André Laignel.
“In an hour of speech, five minutes refer to finances, while the 2025 budget, with a drain of 11 billion, is the worst of all time,” added the first councilor of Issoudun (Indre), to who local public services “are more in danger than ever.”
Source: BFM TV
