Occitanie Regional Council: Budgetary guidelines for 2025 unveiled in an anxiety-provoking context

Carole Delga et ses équipes ont dû jongler avec des contraintes diverses. Midi Libre – SYLVIE CAMBON

Political instability, draft finance bill not established for 2025, drift of public finances: the preparation of the budget was not a sinecure.

The major budgetary orientations of the Occitanie Region should have been debated by the 158 elected officials a month ago. They were finally this Thursday, from the Montpellier exhibition center.

Orientations that President Carole Delga had largely revealed, precisely a month ago when she explained this postponement due to the measures taken by the host of Matignon at the time, Michel Barnier, then during a meeting with the readers of Midi Libre last week, and again, this Wednesday, with the press.

Four Prime Ministers in 2024

The budget rapporteur, Stéphanie Bérard, detailed them during this plenary assembly, after recalling the instability of the political context (four Prime Ministers in 2024), and referring to an economic and budgetary environment haunted in France by the drift of public finances.

With at the top of this pyramid of fragilities, this incongruity: the Barnier government which established the 2025 finance bill was censored, while it planned a budgetary effort of 60 billion euros in which local authorities would have participated to the tune of 5 billion.

Still “the cheapest start of the school year in France”

It is therefore on this basis, which no longer exists, that local authorities have prepared their own budget. One certainty: Occitanie will suffer a new drop in revenue this year, estimated at 187 million euros, as Carole Delga has regularly indicated.

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In this situation, the Occitanie Region has nevertheless decided to maintain, as Carole Delga had already indicated and as the rapporteur repeated during the session, “the cheapest start of the school year in France, 800 euros in savings (notably with the free computer offered to each high school student, Editor's note), free transport for 12-26 year olds, €1 train fares for employees, aid for businesses and farmers, action in favour of local health, in particular the recruitment of doctors”. Among others.

Necessary savings

But in such a landscape where uncertainties and concerns predominate, economic measures are necessary. Among these, first and foremost, is a review of the regional authority's intervention in favour of railway and road infrastructure: while the reopening of small lines (including Alès-Bessèges, and on the right bank of the Rhône) and high-speed rail projects are spared, the Region has decided “to give up the experiment on the management of national roads” (including the RN88 which passes through Lozère), and to postpone the acquisition of train sets in partnership with the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region.

Three regional agencies by 2028

The Region has also chosen to continue reducing the number of regional agencies (there will only be three left by 2028, the Region had up to 17), to freeze “the creation of new positions in 2025”, and to “no longer compensate for the State's disengagements”.

In front of our readers on December 10, Carole Delga had also mentioned “5% reduction in subsidies at least for certain structures, which have good cash flow”, or a high school initially planned in Mauguio which will not be built not.

“It's amazing!”

A set which did not seem to convince the opposition to the regional majority. Certainly, the Alésien Christophe Rivenq, was conciliatory by expressing, for one of the two groups of the right of government represented in the hemicycle, his astonishment: “It's mind-boggling, we are preparing budgets without information on the PLF 2025! What will be the amount of subsidies withdrawn from the communities? ? Five billion, one two ? We can only hope that the government comes to its senses!”

300,000 € of aid for the victims of Mayotte

Aurélien Pradié (Les Républicains), castigated, for his part, “a Region that is reaching the end of its own system. It is a revealing moment in fact, revealing the way in which the Region has been poorly managed.”

As for Yoann Gillet from Nîmes, he deplored “a very disappointing budget, lacking precision, with an exploding debt, and investment in decline.”

A moment of unanimity nevertheless: for the vote of aid of €300,000 in favor of the victims of Mayotte. Which will be paid into the solidarity fund created by the Regions of France.

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