The government will meet on Tuesday at the Ministry of the Economy around twenty parliamentarians, in particular from the opposition, to discuss the draft budget for the year 2024, AFP learned on Monday.
The executive thus takes over the “Dialogues de Bercy”, a meeting format inaugurated in 2022 by the former Minister Delegate for Public Accounts Gabriel Attal, who has since left for National Education and replaced at Bercy by Thomas Cazenave.
Among the parliamentarians invited to the ministry at 6:00 p.m. are notably the chairman of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly Eric Coquerel (La France insoumise), the general rapporteur for the budget Jean-René Cazeneuve (Renaissance) or the deputies Les Républicains Véronique Louwagie and Fabien DiFilippo.
Tuesday’s meeting is for the moment the only one on the agenda within the framework of the “Dialogues de Bercy”, but the government does not rule out organizing others during September, the date of Tuesday September 19 being in particular mentioned.
A first meeting had already taken place in July around Gabriel Attal, Véronique Louwagie told AFP.
The government is due to present its draft budget for 2024 during the last week of September.
While the 2023 budget was adopted thanks to a litany of 49-3 in Parliament, “our door is open to opposition”, assured Thomas Cazenave on Wednesday in an interview with the newspaper Les Echos.
“We are ready to work on all avenues, but for that, everyone will have to come up with proposals, in particular for savings,” he continued.
If the entourage of Eric Coquerel emphasizes to AFP his openness to “dialogue”, he recalls that the Bercy Dialogues had not prevented the government from passing the budget to the forceps, with a lot of support from 49-3 .
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne declared on RTL on Sunday that the government “will have to resort, certainly this fall, to 49-3”, adding that “our country needs a budget”.
In addition to the draft budget, the 2023-2027 public finance programming law is to be discussed on Tuesday.
The government had first presented this text to Parliament in the fall of 2022, but it had been rejected. A veto which blocks the granting of European funds to France, according to the presidential camp, and which therefore motivates this second attempt at adoption.