2023-11-09 17:38:06
Published on Nov 9, 2023 at 6:31 p.m.Updated Nov. 9, 2023 at 6:38 p.m.
The poor state of Social Security finances will weigh on future generations, senators warned on Thursday, denouncing the government’s lack of ambition to correct the situation.
Examined next week in a public session in the Senate, where the right and the center are in the majority, the draft Social Security budget “is characterized by the abandonment of any objective not only of returning to balance […] but also simple stabilization of the deficit,” deplore the members of the Social Affairs Committee of the upper house.
Confession of helplessness
After coming close to 40 billion euros in 2020 with the Covid crisis, the Social Security deficit must be reduced to 8.8 billion at the end of this year. The improvement will, however, be short-lived. Because the deficit will widen again in 2024 (to 11.2 billion) and continue to slide (to reach 17.5 billion in 2027).
“The government is presenting a trajectory which is an admission of powerlessness,” denounced Thursday the general rapporteur for the Social Security budget, Elisabeth Doineau (Centrist Union). “It is obvious that we are planning to leave the debt to future generations,” lamented the senator from Mayenne. “We are endangering our social system. »
The management of social debt in question
To mark its disapproval, the committee rejected the financial trajectory proposed by the government until 2027 in its draft budget. However, the ability of senators to correct the situation is very limited. The Social Security financing bill, already examined by the deputies, is promised to be adopted via article 49.3 during a second reading in the Assembly. The government will therefore have the last word.
This situation does not prevent senators from warning about the tools for managing social debt, going hand in hand with deficits. Since the end of the 1990s, the social debt has been ring-fenced and its repayment is ensured by the Social Debt Amortization Fund (Cades), financed by the CSG and the CRDS.
Extend the lifespan of Cades?
However, this tool is supposed to disappear in 2033. So much so that transfers of social debt to Cades are currently limited. “Only 8.8 billion euros of transfers will be possible in 2024,” underline the senators.
To go further, it would be necessary to extend the lifespan of the Cades. A politically sensitive decision that can only be taken by organic law.
The government is delaying
If nothing changes, it is the Urssaf National Fund (formerly Acoss), which will have to manage the accumulation of Social Security deficits, by borrowing in the short term on the financial markets, underline the senators. Enough to “create a liquidity risk”.
“During the Covid-19 period, Acoss had already managed a high level of debt, and we have no concerns for 2024,” delayed the Minister of Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave, questioned by the senators on the subject.
However, he recognized that “work” was being carried out to “make the social debt in the broad sense financeable and sustainable”. The government has also promised a “spending review” to better control social spending. In the field of Social Security, this exercise is supposed to identify 6 billion euros in savings to be made by 2025.
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