More than two weeks after the start of the parliamentary marathon on the 2022 finance bill in the National Assembly, a thick fog continues to hang over the last budget of the five-year term. Without containing major tax changes, the 2022 budget was to embody the “return to normal” with an exit from the health crisis marked by an economic rebound and a growth forecast raised to 6.25% by Bercy. But parliamentarians are now caught between the latest announcements by the executive to deal with inflation and the absence in the finance bill of key measures of this budget, such as the France 2030 investment plan. or the employment contract for young people. “Very smart who can say today how much will rise the state budget on December 25”, summarizes the socialist deputy Christine Pirès Beaune.
As soon as the bill was presented to the Council of Ministers on September 22, the High Council of Public Finance declared itself unable to “Comment on the plausibility of the deficit forecast for 2022”. While awaiting his new opinion, parliamentarians do not hesitate to talk about an already obsolete budget. “He is not insincere in the legal sense of the term, underlines the socialist senator of Paris Rémi Féraud, but it is neither complete nor serious and, as it evolves as the budget discussion progresses, it does not respect Parliament’s rights. ”
This is not the first time that government announcements have hit the content of a parliamentary discussion, but by the admission of the members of the majority and especially of the oppositions, the impact of these announcements contributes to compromising the mission of control. From the opening of the general discussion, the method of the executive which consists in filling in the gaps in the finance bill (PLF) and the social security financing bill (PLFSS) by amendment, without examination in commission and sometimes without an impact study, had been criticized by the oppositions, especially on the right. The Republicans deputy Gilles Carrez, former chairman of the finance committee (2012-2017), had denounced “The hellish pace of presidential promises”.
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“We are moving forward in this budget blindfolded, I am not even sure that in front of us the ministers know the answers to our questions”, considers the deputy La France insoumise (LFI) of Seine-Saint-Denis Eric Coquerel. The rapporteur La République en Marche (LRM) of the budget, Laurent Saint-Martin, admits that “The context is uncomfortable”, but remains true to its initial analysis: “Paradoxically, it is more honest in a post-crisis period to have a text that we will complete as we go along according to the needs of our fellow citizens rather than pretending to put measures into initial law and not not know how to calibrate them. “
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