At Bercy, the last arbitrations and the calculators must be running at full speed to be able to complete the last budget of Emmanuel Macron's five-year term, which must in principle be presented on September 22 in the Council of Ministers.
Several questions remain about the sums intended for security, the commitment income or the investment plan.
Because even if the government still expects growth of 6% in 2021, these expenses risk weighing heavily in an economic context where public spending with the epidemic has exploded.
“It's not an easy budget to make.
Several public policy decisions have not yet been decided, ”admitted Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy.
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The main issue still to be concluded is the development of the commitment income, wanted by the President of the Republic to support young people without training towards employment in exchange for an income of around 500 euros.
Except that the discussions still drag on around the perimeter of the device.
"We need a budget to return to reason"
"There are discussions on the length of the course, on the speed at which we set up the device and on the means that will have to be allocated to Pôle emploi and in the local missions," said the Ministry of Job. Same cautious tone in Matignon: "the subject is being considered" while Jean Castex has started his meetings with the social partners this fall. According to Echoes estimates, depending on the criteria selected, the device could cost between 1 and 3.8 billion euros.
The other thorny site is that of the investment plan of 30 billion euros. This plan seems to have fallen a bit behind schedule and is not expected to be announced until October. It is therefore parliamentarians who will be responsible for integrating this amount into the budget. To this will be added the measures in favor of the police that Emmanuel Macron must present in the coming days at the conclusion of the Beauvau of security, as well as the plan in favor of the city of Marseille.
For Eric Woerth, the chairman of the Finance Committee at the National Assembly (LR), this “anthology” of spending goes against the objective of debt reduction. The government, according to him, "must try to control the desire to increase current spending" that is to say spending not induced by the Covid-19 epidemic. "We need a budget to return to reason," he adds. Debt should still reach 115.7% of GDP in 2022, after more than 117% expected this year, according to the government, for a deficit of 5.3% of GDP, against a little less than 9% expected in 2021.
