Three birds with one stone: in addition to the 2023-2027 public finance programming bill, the Council of Ministers held on Wednesday authorized the use of 49.3 for the two other budgetary texts, the finance bill (PLF) and that concerning the Social Security budget (PLFSS).
On Wednesday, after the meeting with the Head of State, the government was reluctant to specify its intentions, before announcing that authorization had been given to the government to use this constitutional weapon, at least for the text on the budgetary trajectory for the next quarter years.
On Thursday, several government sources confirmed to AFP that the blank check from the Council of Ministers also concerned the PLF and the PLFSS, the successive examinations of which must begin at the beginning of October in Parliament.
Article 49.3 was used on Wednesday evening by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, during the debates before the National Assembly of the text concerning the public finance programming bill 2023-2027.
We need this law to program our public finances. We cannot take the slightest risk, Elisabeth Borne justified in the hemicycle, by activating for the twelfth time since the start of the mandate this provision which allows a text to be adopted without a vote, unless a motion of censure is voted on. against the government.
Expected consequence: the left-wing Nupes alliance tabled a motion of censure in the crowd, which must be examined Friday evening.
If the National Rally (RN) has indicated that it would vote for it, it however has little chance of succeeding, the president of the LR in the Assembly, Olivier Marleix, having indicated that his group would not vote for it.
Long streak
The use of 49.3 for the next two budgetary texts seems just as inevitable for the government, already forced to resolve to it last year during the examination of the first post-legislative budgets, elections which had only given it a relative majority in the National Assembly.
Thursday morning, on LCI, the Minister of the Budget, Thomas Cazenave, indicated that the use of the constitutional army the previous evening was probably the first in a long series.
The budget is both the finance bill for the State budget (and) the Social Security financing bill. So it will probably be around ten 49.3 depending on the progress of the debates, he indicated.
My responsibility as Minister of Public Accounts is to provide the country with a budget before the end of the year, he continued.
I understand that the oppositions do not vote on budgetary texts but do we have the choice or not to have a budget? How will January 1, 2024 work if we don’t have a budget? Are we stopping funding our hospitals, our police officers, our teachers? This would not be reasonable and not responsible, he insisted, while saying he was open to dialogue with the oppositions.
We must trivialize the use of 49.3, there is no possible alternative, argued a minister a few days ago, in unison with many leaders of the majority, while the Constitution allows it to be used every vote with regard to budgetary texts.
The PLF must, according to the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, green the economy, protect the French from inflation, but also try to slightly improve deteriorated public finances.