At the end of April, the Prime Minister announced the color to the entire government. Due to the economic consequences of the war in the Middle East, “…at least 6 billion euros ”, it was necessary, according to him, to release the same sum from public finances, by making cuts in social security spending (to the tune of €2 billion) and the State (€4 billion).
If the government multiplied the calculations and forecasts, it insufficiently informed parliamentarians about its thoughts, so much so that the Senate Finance Committee ended up setting an ultimatum regarding obtaining the details of these budgetary decisions. The adjustments fall within the State’s margin of maneuver, which can intervene without having to resort to an amending finance law and thus cancel up to 1.5% of the credits opened in the finance law, or around a dozen billion €.
Draft decrees had leaked, and the texts in question have now been published in the Official Journal of June 12.
Millions gone
The first decree, « opening and canceling credits as advances », finance « several urgent and targeted expenditures to help households with the lowest incomes pay their home energy bills and support workers “big rollersâ€following the energy shock resulting from the conflict in the Near and Middle East ”, specifies the Ministry of Action and Public Accounts.
â€406.6 million in commitment authorizations (AE) and â€463.5 million in payment credits (CP) are thus open to program 174, “ Energy, climate and post-mining ”, of the mission “Sustainable ecology, development and mobility”.
« The financing of these openings is secured by cancellations of credits in due proportion, on ministerial credits excluding payroll from the precautionary reserve ”, underlines the ministry.
For Culture, the amounts announced in the projects have been retained. Rue de Valois thus loses €19.2 million in AE and €19.9 million in CP. The “Creation” and “Heritage” programs are particularly affected, with declines of €7 million on average in AE and CP. The “Transmission of knowledge and democratization of culture” program, for its part, suffered a cancellation to the tune of €5 million, in AE and CP. The “Support for the policies of the Ministry of Culture” program would lose around €800,000, in AE and CP as well.
On the side of the “Media, book and cultural industries” mission, same punishment, with €1.8 million less in commitment authorizations and a reduction of €1.7 million for payment appropriations for the “Book and industries” program cultural…
Le second décret concrétise « an additional effort to control spending [publique] ” in order to respect  the public deficit target of -5.0% of gross domestic product (GDP) », malgré le « renewed uncertainty » and la « sharp rise in the price of hydrocarbons » caused by the war in the Middle East. It thus proceeds to the cancellation of 440 million € in commitment authorizations and 490 million € in payment credits.
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On the side of the Ministry of Culture, this political choice resulted in the cancellations of €18.9 million in AE and €18.2 million in CP. As announced, the “Transmission of knowledge and democratization of culture” program is the most affected (around €7 million less in AE and CP), ahead of “Heritages” and “Creation”. The “Book and Cultural Industries” program is once again one of the losers with 1.1 million € fewer credits in AE and 1.3 million € in CP.
Once again, the government is careful to specify that these cancellations “ concern exclusively credits excluding payroll and relate, essentially, to the precautionary reserve ”. These credits are “ deemed unprogrammed and aim to guarantee, in the event of unforeseen circumstances, overall execution of general budget expenditure respecting the initial parliamentary authorization ».
The ministry therefore sees its reserve dwindling, at the risk of not being able to cope with certain contingencies. In particular, by chance, the great difficulties encountered by bookstores…
Photography: illustration, ActuaLitté, CC BY SA 2.0
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By Antoine Oury
Contact : ao@actualitte.com
