Unveiled this Wednesday afternoon March 16 at a press conference, the government’s new resilience plan to combat the effects of the war in Ukraine focuses mainly on aid to businesses.
The executive had warned that this new plan would not be comparable to that deployed during the coronavirus crisis, but potential additional boosts for the most fragile households, in particular food, were among the tracks mentioned over the past fortnight.
Extension of the “fuel discount” to LNG and LPG
Finally, the only new announcement that Matignon has reserved for individuals concerns the application of the “fuel discount” of 15 cents to natural gas for vehicles (NGV) and especially to LPG, which were a priori excluded.
In addition to this fuel discount, there is an exceptional increase of one thousand euros in MaPrimeRénov’ aid for the replacement of gas and fuel oil boilers until the end of the year, announced by the Minister for Ecological Transition at the end of intervention by the Prime Minister.
Jean Castex also repeated his call on oil companies and distributors to make an additional effort in order to further reduce prices at the pump for the French.
A call to which the TotalEnergies group was the first to respond through the voice of its Chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanné, who immediately announced on his account twitter an additional cash discount of 10 centimes per litre, applied at all TotalEnergies service stations in France.
Speaking just after the Prime Minister, Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy recalled ” that no country in Europe has so protected its compatriots against soaring energy prices”, and underlined that the “fiscal shield” put in place in recent months for gas and electricity had made it possible to contain French inflation at one of the lowest rates in the euro zone.
Fishing, agriculture, construction, transport, export…
On the business side, the resilience plan, on the other hand, takes a very broad view: the State should spend between 22 and 26 billion euros in a set of general measures, specific measures reserved for the sectors of fishing, agriculture, construction, transport, and export, as well as provisions aimed at ensuring the transition of the French economic model towards greater energy, technological, industrial and food autonomy.
In terms of multi-sectoral provisions, the executive has just announced the strengthening of state-guaranteed loans (PGE) – with a borrowing ceiling raised to 35% of turnover against 25% until now, a deferral of tax and social charges for companies impacted by the crisis in Ukraine, as well as the extension of the partial activity scheme for twelve months.
Public subsidies
Above all, the government will deploy direct state aid which can reach up to 25 million euros. This new public subsidy system will be open to all companies without any size or sector condition, but respecting the following three conditions: experiencing a 40% increase in energy bills since the start of the war in Ukraine, justifying a weight of these invoices representing more than 3% of turnover, and suffer an operating loss.
In practice, subsidies should mainly concern “ the sectors of metallurgy, chemicals, cardboard paper, certain agri-food industries such as the sugar industry, and certain agricultural productions “, specified the Minister of Economy and Finance.