The Minister of the Economy Éric Lombard announced this Saturday, December 28, 2024, that he wanted to invite all parties to dialogue at Bercy in the coming days, hoping that “compromises” would be found to promote the adoption of a budget.
Ready for “compromises”, and anxious “that a budget be adopted”, the new Minister of the Economy Éric Lombard will try to proceed “through dialogue” by inviting all the parties represented in Parliament to come and discuss it at Bercy.
“At the request of the Prime Minister, I will call on the political parties represented in the National Assembly and the Senate, as well as the parliamentary groups, to come and talk to the ministry with Amélie de Montchalin, the Minister of Public Accounts, and myself”, assures Mr. Lombard in an interview with the Tribune Dimanche.
He will contact everyone “from (Sunday) morning”, judging that “all elected officials are legitimate” and thus seeming to want to avoid recent controversies, such as that provoked by his predecessor Antoine Armand who, in his first interview at the end of September, had indicated that he was excluding the RN from the Republican arc, to the great irritation of Marine Le Pen.
No precedence displayed either: “The order of passage will depend on their availability, and the configuration will be the one they want”, according to the minister, whose door “will remain open until January 14, the date of François Bayrou's general policy speech”, but “also afterwards”.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000“The results of this dialogue” will be presented to Prime Minister François Bayrou, “so that it can be translated into government proposals”.
The man who was until Monday the general director of the Caisse des Dépôts, the leading public financial center, recalls having been “in this capacity in permanent contact with elected officials, local or national”.
While the first secretary of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure, who does not rule out censuring the Bayrou government, nevertheless acknowledged on Tuesday on BFMTV that Mr. Lombard was “a man of the left” and “a friend”, the new minister evaded: “I will talk to everyone and I will have the same speech with all elected officials. Some will perhaps be more committed, others more reluctant. We will see”.
“We must find compromises, it is essential”, he added.
“Grain à moudre”
He intends to “adjust” the finance bill prepared by the Barnier government, and left pending during the parliamentary shuttle by the censure of the December 4.
The minister believes that any tax increases should be “very limited”, and that “additional savings” will be needed.
The deficit would be included in the text at “a little over 5%” of GDP, .
Before concessions to the opposition that did not save him from censure, Michel Barnier displayed the intention of reducing a public deficit of 6.1% of GDP this year, which earned France a procedure for excessive deficit in Brussels, to 5% next year.
Mr. Lombard dismisses in passing the risk of a possible increase in the number of people subject to income tax next year, if the special law that will allow the strict functioning of the State at the beginning of the year were to continue: it does not allow the traditional indexation of the scale of this tax on inflation.
“We will have a budget that will include an indexation of the scale” cut short Mr. Lombard's questions. “The French who do not pay income tax today will not pay it tomorrow”.
He “also issues a condition” for a future adjustment of the law on pensions: the discussions “must not increase the deficit of old-age insurance”. There is “some grist to the mill within this constraint”, according to him.
The minister hopes that “the construction of a credible budget will be a response to the concerns (of the) markets” about French public finances.
Finally, he considers “very serious” the threat of customs barriers raised by Donald Trump. “We must prepare for a very vigorous response”, but “theEuropean Union has the necessary weapons”, he assures.