2024-10-16 17:53:00
The Assembly’s Finance Committee wants to become a committee of inquiry in the face of budgetary drift. In any case, it unanimously asked to be given the same powers this Wednesday, in order to determine the reasons for the slippage in the public deficit, which according to the executive could reach 6.1% of GDP in 2024.
The powers of a commission of inquiry include summons with an obligation for the person to honor it, powers of investigation and to conduct hearings under oath. At the initiative of its president Eric Coquerel (LFI), the Finance Committee of the Assembly will request these powers “for six months”in order to investigate “the causes” of « la variation » and “gaps in tax and budget forecasts” observed over the years 2023 and 2024.
Michel Barnier seems to approve of this initiative
The request will be sent to President Yaël Braun-Pivet then notified to the government, group and commission presidents, who will have a short period of time to object. But Prime Minister Michel Barnier appeared to approve this initiative, saying on Tuesday that the commission should “determine the figures, the facts, the truth and tell it to the French”.
“In 2017-2018, previous governments brought the deficit below 3%. And then there was a rush” with the war in Ukraine, inflation and the Covid crisis, explained the Prime Minister to the National Assembly. “And then we poorly managed the way out of the crisis, and this is the reality today”.
Éric Ciotti and his parliamentary group of the Union of Rights for the Republic (UDR) had also announced that they wanted to launch a commission of inquiry on this subject. A compromise was found so that the future commission of inquiry, chaired by Eric Coquerel, has two rapporteurs: Eric Ciotti (UDR) on the opposition side and Mathieu Lefèvre (EPR) for the relative majority.
Éric Coquerel said he hoped to be able to launch the work of the future commission by « until November » or “early December” and felt that she should ” obviously “ audition “past political leaders”starting with the former Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, but also “rise to the Prime Ministers” at the time, Élisabeth Borne then Gabriel Attal.
The question of the time limit
The members of the Finance Committee debated at length the scope to be given to the future commission of inquiry, and in particular the relevant period. Some argued for limiting it strictly to the slippage observed between 2023 and 2024, others for not imposing any time limit.
“It is not a commission of inquiry into public deficits or the policy pursued since 2017”and the arrival of Emmanuel Macron to power, insisted Éric Coquerel, believing however that the search for « causes » slippage would allow the members of the commission to look into the keeping of accounts since the Covid years.
In the Macronist camp, Mathieu Lefèvre said “welcome with great serenity” this commission of inquiry, affirming “that those who cry today about budgetary scandal will see after one or two weeks of hearings that there is no public finance conspiracy”.
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