Efforts for everyone. The National Assembly office decided on Wednesday morning to freeze the amount required by the Palais-Bourbon to the State every year. Therefore, this provision of an amount of 607.65 million euros will not move when it is traditionally increased by the amount of inflation.
“We must be specimens at a time when we are asking for efforts of all French to straighten the country’s budgetary situation,” summarizes deputy Brigitte Klinkert (Renaissance) and the Questeur Assembly of BFMTV’s.
There is no controversy this year
They were she and her colleagues Christine Pirès-Beaune and Michèle Tabarot, in charge of the financial and administrative services of the lower chamber, who made the proposal to President already Braun-Pivet.
An increase in the budget of the National Assembly would have had a bad effect despite the fact that François Bayrou must announce its savings clues on July 15 to find 40 billion euros and complete the state and social security budget.
The maneuver also has the advantage of avoiding controversy. Last year, initially an increase in the budget of the National Assembly of 1.7%, the equivalent of inflation is expected.
But the gesture had been shocked in a context of public finance already very complicated. Already Braun-Pivet had finally retreated, as did the president of the Gérard Larcher Senate who foresees the same device.
5,950 euros per month for current expenses
Another evolution for the Assembly: a reform of the deputies of the mandates of the deputies to simplify their management. The elected officials of the Assembly currently have two envelopes. The first corresponds to an advance on mandate costs (AFM). Specifically, it allows the deputies to pay the costs directly linked to the exercise of their mandate, such as their transport trips or their hotel rooms.
Each expense incurred by the deputy must be accompanied by a financial evidence such as a receipt or an invoice and must be directly linked to the exercise of the mandate.
If at the end of the mandate, the deputies did not consume all the envelope available, they must revoke the notes that are not spent in the National Assembly. Each deputy is also verified at least once per mandate in their faces for the ethics of the National Assembly. The amount of this envelope is currently 5,950 euros per month.
Very little controlled IT expenses
A second compensation allows you to buy computer equipment and telephone for your permanence in the constituency. It is called the provision of material of the deputies (DMD). The deputies are not paid directly, but it consists of a loan available. The costs to buy a computer, for example, are advanced and are then reimbursed on the bill. The annual amount made available to the deputy chosen in Continental France amounts to 16,790 euros. Not consumed sums can be transported from year to year.
Problem: Deputies can use it as they want, without verifying that this material is well destined for them. On paper, an elected official can buy a laptop for your child while using this endowment. The assessment of the Assembly does not verify this type of expenses and the deputies do not have to demonstrate their need.
But now it is over: the envelope in advance in the costs of the mandate and that of the material allocation of the deputies will merge.
“Everything will be much simpler. We let the forms be sent to be reimbursed for a computer, we can better control with the ethics specialist that can now look at all expenses,” synthesizes the search (PS) Christine Pirès-Beaneaune.
Towards an increase in general envelope
Exit, therefore, the provision of material, 70% of which will enrich the envelope of the progress of the mandate costs. 25% will also increase parliamentary employees and 5% disappear. But it is impossible for the moment to say how specifically the progress of the mandate costs will increase.
“Not everything will not be consumed, so in the end, we cannot really calculate the amount spent by the deputies. But we will say that we should probably be around 7,000 euros per month, I think,” summarizes an assembly official who closely follows the file.
In January 2024, the increase in the envelope of the costs of the mandate decided to follow inflation had difficulties to pass through the ranks of the left. It had been considered necessary for a complete part of the hemicycle to follow inflation.
Source: BFM TV
