2024-11-06 17:51:00
After noting a huge hole in public finances at the start of the school year, the government is trying to manage the landing of the 2024 accounts according to its latest flight plan – the one which forecasts a public deficit reaching 6.1% of GDP this year. . This objective may well be very far from the initial ambition (4.4% of GDP) or even from that which still prevailed in the spring (5.1%), it requires last minute corrective actions, detailed in the draft end of management finance law (PLFG), made public on Wednesday.
Not being a amending finance bill, this text does not contain any new tax measures likely to replenish the coffers in disaster. On the other hand, it finalizes the allocations of budgetary credits to the various ministries, on which the government can play to limit the damage. Michel Barnier therefore decided to cut these credits by 5.6 billion euros.
Darken the picture
“For 80%, these are precautionary reserves from the various ministries, which were frozen last summer,” we explain in Bercy. The remainder is distributed fairly diffusely across all ministries. » This exercise of forced sobriety is a continuation of the work carried out by the previous government. As early as February, the former Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, and his Minister of the Budget, Thomas Cazenave, had enacted by decree an initial cut of 10 billion euros in the ministries’ appropriations. Then, in the summer, they decided to temporarily freeze an additional 16.7 billion – inviting the new government to cancel all or part of it.
Michel Barnier followed this recommendation. But sparingly, since it only cancels a quarter of these frozen credits. Some, in the former majority, accuse the government of deliberately darkening the picture for 2024 to highlight its recovery action in 2025. “All the levers available have been mobilized to control spending,” assures Bercy, pointing out that three quarters of the frozen credits will ultimately not have been used in 2024.
“The government sought to cancel as many credits as possible. I believe it is sincere,” says Claude Raynal, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The elected socialist, however, points out that the cuts inevitably cause damage and that it would have been better not to show increasing budgets, before slashing them: “It is always more painful to withdraw credits than not to grant them. There was a sizing problem initially. »
Unexpected expenses
The Barnier government also explains that it was forced to open new lines of credit for the 2024 financial year to cope with several unexpected expenditure items. The crisis in New Caledonia in particular requires a budgetary increase of 1 billion euros. Added to this are the bonuses of agents who ensured the security of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the cost of organizing early legislative elections, the increase in financial support for Ukraine, etc. In total, unforeseen credit openings reach 4.2 billion euros.
From now on, for these expenses to actually be incurred, “it is imperative and urgent that this text be adopted,” explains Bercy. The National Assembly examines the PLFG from November 19. But for lack of a majority – or financial room for maneuver, to concede a few small victories to the oppositions in exchange for their abstention like last year – the government could well be forced to resort to 49.3.
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