Faced with soaring energy prices, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire stressed on Wednesday that not all communities could be helped in the same way, suggesting that state support be conditional on the rigor of their budget management.
I don’t at all underestimate the difficulties of local authorities, affirmed the Minister before the Economic Affairs Committee of the National Assembly.
But we cannot treat all communities the same way: you have communities that are doing well, others that are in great difficulty, added Mr. Le Maire, a few days before the start of the debates in Parliament. on the 2023 budget, during which the question of support for communities will probably come back on the agenda.
You also have communities that are well managed, and others that are less well managed. When I see communities that have hired massively and then come to ask the State, because they cannot meet energy bills, to pay instead of communities, this can pose a difficulty, warned the government number two.
It is good, vis–vis the taxpayer, to ensure that local authorities have a sense of responsibility. In this context, we are ready to help all those who face major difficulties, who have managed well and have no reason to pay for the current energy crisis, continued Mr. Le Maire.
On the whole, he concluded, local authorities are protected, since 30,000 of them have access to a regulated tariff and the others benefit from a [fonds d’un] half a billion euros which was voted by Parliament this summer.
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The Minister responded to the interpellation of the ecologist deputy Charles Fournier, for whom the financial situation of the departments, intermunicipalities and other municipalities is alarming.
The half-billion-dollar fund is clearly insufficient in relation to the situation that local authorities may experience, forced to assume the rise in energy prices and the 3.5% increase in the salaries of civil servants, insisted there. ‘read from Indre-et-Loire.
Local authorities are also worried about a decrease in their tax revenue, with the upcoming abolition of the business value added contribution (CVAE), which should cause them to lose 4 billion euros in 2023.