Budget 2024: the Senate in search of savings, facing the government
2023-11-23 05:37:00
The start is given at 2:30 p.m. for nearly three weeks of intense budgetary debates in the upper house before the solemn vote scheduled for December 12 on this finance bill for 2024 (PLF).
This budget has already undergone a tumultuous parliamentary journey before its arrival at the Luxembourg Palace: the government, without an absolute majority in the National Assembly, had to resort twice to article 49.3 of the Constitution to have it adopted without a vote, cutting short the debates in the hemicycle.
The executive, which easily resisted motions of censure from oppositions in Parliament, is now in the eye of Brussels: the European Commission asked France on Tuesday to “decrease spending” at the risk of “not be online” with the EU budgetary recommendations.
The government speech therefore advocates rigor, while the rating agency Standard and Poor’s will pronounce on December 1 on the rating of the French debt, a meeting anxiously scrutinized by Bercy.
Blinders” or listening to the government?
In this context, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire expects senators “additional savings proposals”he told the weekly La Tribune on Sunday, defending his budget at 16 billion in savings, a deficit reduced in 2024 to 4.4% of GDP.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire leaves the Elysée after a council of ministers on November 15, 2023 in ParisAFP/Archives / Ludovic MARIN.
This is good, the Senate, with a right and center majority, seems more determined than ever to restore budgetary balance.
“Public finances are in the crimson red. We have to get back to it”alarms the general budget rapporteur Jean-François Husson (Les Républicains), worrying about a budget “unreasonable” in a context where “all neighboring countries are recovering”.
With the AFP, he promises an examination “responsible” of this text by the Senate and even aims “4 to 5 billion savings” compared to the government’s copy…
Problem: nothing ensures that the executive will retain the slightest of the measures voted in the upper house. The text seems promised at 49.3 during a new reading in the National Assembly in December and the government will be able to retain only the amendments that suit it.
“The government must hear us!” Mr. Husson is indignant, “If he doesn’t do it, it’s because he has blinders on and has already lost the game”.
“We will try to confront the government with its contempt for Parliament,” assures the ecologist Thomas Dossus, who will take up in the Senate numerous proposals – sometimes transpartisan – emanating from deputies who were unable to defend them in session .
Pampered communities
The different groups promise to reopen the debate on the “superprofits” of large companies or their share buybacks; and some intend to re-discuss the CVAE, a production tax on businesses that the government wants to eliminate by 2027.
Housing will be one of the central points of this budget: “Everyone says he’s a social bomb”, worries communist senator Pascal Savoldelli. The refocusing of the zero-interest loan, for example, will be talked about.
Senator and general budget rapporteur Jean-François Husson during a press conference in Paris on July 6, 2023AFP / Ludovic MARIN.
As usual, the “chamber of territories” intends to pamper local authorities, while many mayors have paraded in recent days at the Senate on the sidelines of their Congress in Paris. An exceptional envelope of 100 million euros for the departments will be proposed by the senatorial majority.
For once, the Senate will very broadly defend a tax, called “taxe streaming”aimed at making online music platforms contribute to financing the National Music Center (CNM).
Finally, an unprecedented amendment was tabled by several political groups to introduce a “minimum unit price” alcohol, a public health measure which intends to target excessive consumption while preserving the local wine industry, whose lobby is well established at the Palais du Luxembourg.