The subject is not officially on the agenda. At least not yet. But Emmanuel Macron intends to wear it, on the occasion of the French presidency of the European Union (EU), which starts on 1er January 2022, the explosive subject of the revision of the rules of the Stability Pact. A highly political subject in an election year. Since 1997, these have governed the public finances of the member states of the euro zone, by forcing them to a form of budgetary rigor, and are regularly ridiculed by the extreme right and the extreme left, who see it as a distortion of French sovereignty.
Difficult to pass over the question in silence for France. These rules, long considered intangible, have seen their relevance questioned since the crisis linked to Covid-19, which required the mobilization of historic sums of public money, forcing Brussels to suspend these rules until the end of 2022. The The euro zone has indeed a level of public debt above 98% of GDP and an expected public deficit of nearly 8% in 2021, against the thresholds set respectively at 60% and 3% by the stability pact.
The prospect of global warming, which supposes massive investments in the years to come, to reduce the carbon footprint of human activities, also raises the question of their evolution. Set in 1997, the purpose of these rules was to ensure the stability and value of the euro by bringing together European economies with different profiles.
Takeover and sovereignty
The question of returning to the pre-crisis situation is therefore on everyone’s mind – the European Commission has also launched a consultation on the subject, which should be concluded at the beginning of 2022. It could even arise more quickly than expected. , due to the strength of the restart of certain European economies, including France, which officially returned to its pre-Covid level of activity in the third quarter, according to data published by INSEE on Friday, October 29.
But the subject remains very sensitive, opposing as always several groups of countries depending on the situation of their public finances: on the one hand the “frugal”, mainly in Northern Europe, who are keen on a rapid return to rule, on the other, the countries of southern Europe, whose public finances have been severely damaged by the crisis – Italy’s debt peaks at 160% of GDP and Greece’s at 200%. With a debt approaching 115% of GDP and an expected deficit of 5% next year, France is now more in the second category.
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