The prime minister has just announce the postponement of the submission of the draft law of amendment of
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the programming of public finances “in the spring of 2020”. This is unprecedented as traditionally the draft law on the programming occurs in the fall. It is all the more striking that, following the measures of the “yellow vests”, the act of programming has been requested by many parliamentarians.
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The act of the programming of public finances allows for a prediction of the trajectory of public finances (expenditure/revenue/balance/debt) on a multi-year basis which is usually five years, and especially to refresh the previous trajectory. We can then check the differences occurred between the forecast and the execution. So why postpone the presentation of the act of programming?
Two false pretenses
First excuse: it would have to wait for that important trade-offs on the pension reform to be made (and probably renegotiated substantially and by the summer of 2020), which could change the impact “budget” of reform, including with regard to the measures of “convergence” prior. But this does not stick with the government’s position that the reform begins… in the year 2025. Unless a deferral of the age to occur before?
Second pretext: the effects of Brexit and the consistency with the elements that will be communicated by France in the spring of the european Commission in the framework of the half-year eu budget via the stability programme.
And if this report was more political?
This report sets out the critical potential of the High council of public finances and those of the parliamentarians, pushing any debate after the municipal.
By postponing the publication of the law on the programming of public finances after January 2020, the government banned the High council for public finances to perform an updated analysis of the situation in relation to the act of programming 2018-2022. We know already that the structural deficit will be maintained at the same level, or 2.2%, for the second year in a row, and that a significant gap is likely to be raised. It is also foreseeable that the actual deficit and the structural deficit are aligned to 2020 to 2.2 per cent.
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And what about the debate in Parliament on the control of public accounts? By delaying the deposit of the future draft law on the programming, the government avoids shine the spotlight on a possible lack of structural reforms and on the fact that, outside the service of the public debt, the decline in spending is still too shy. Finally, during the review of the Finance law 2020, in the absence of the act of programming avoid presenting a growth assumption is too conservative for the years to come, so that substantial revisions will occur, without doubt the beginning of 2020. The construction of the finance bill is likely to be a little too optimistic. Timer in any case the majority who come to ask for an annual debate on the programming of expenditures of the State on three years, for each public policy, in order to avoid bias construction. It does not take the path.
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The Macronomètre, the observatory of reforms in the government, is a site of the Fondation iFRAP in partnership with The Figaro.fr. It is a tool dedicated to the assessment of the quinquennium of Emmanuel Macron: econometric evaluation in relation to its electoral programme and announcements of his government. With The Macronomètre, the action of the government is to be marked out of 10 each Wednesday prior to the council of ministers and becomes readable in a single glance. The Macronomètre allows each to make a notice on the holding or not of the promises of the president of the Republic and on the effectiveness of the reforms of the government.
