Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne brought together her ministers on Thursday evening to launch a new public “expenditure review” which will help generate 12 billion euros in savings in 2025, Matignon announced.
Aid to businesses, or “medical devices” will be examined in particular, according to Ms. Borne’s services.
While the debt burden will be the first item of State expenditure in 2027, and the government wants to return to below 3% of GDP public deficit in the same year, “it is time to normalize public expenditure and to rebuild financial margins”, was to essentially explain the Prime Minister, according to her services.
The 12 billion savings in 2025 are “an important” but “attainable” step, since it is less than 1% of public spending, according to Matignon: “this requires collective mobilization, hence “direct involvement of the Prime Minister”.
She presented the review alongside the Minister of the Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire and the Minister of Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave, whose services will monitor the reviews carried out by different inspections.
Thursday marks “a first step before a new burst of missions” in December, and the review exercise will now be annual, confirmed Matignon, stressing that it is “notable to speak in mid-November 2023 of the preparation of the 2025 budget” .
The maquis of 110 billion euros of annual aid to businesses will be the subject of a review, because they would contain duplicates, or would have for some antagonistic goals, according to the government which does not see in this study any inconsistency with its supply policy.
While wanting to “continue to ensure access to care and the preservation of innovation”, the government will also launch a review of the approximately 80,000 “medical devices”, ranging from dressings to scanners. He will involve scientific experts.
These devices cost 16 billion euros per year, 48% more than in 2012, with some having a bad ecological impact. The machines alone to fight against sleep apne currently cost 850 million euros per year, an increase of 46% compared to 2016.
The results of these missions should be known at the beginning of March.
The spending reviews launched in 2023 – there will be around twenty over the year – have made it possible, according to the government, to save two billion euros for 2024.