Europe increases pressure on Paris before sending his budget … – Les Echos

Europe increases pressure on Paris before sending his budget … – Les Echos

Budget France will be in the focus of the Eurogroup in Luxembourg today.
Paris wants to show that its adjustment effort n ‘ is not far removed from the goals.

Michel Sapin is warned : The atmosphere promises to be electric this afternoon in Luxembourg, where meet all the finance ministers of the euro area. Tensions further escalated on the French budget this weekend after charging the President of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem. “We feel that the draft budget of France is pretty far from the goal, both in terms of nominal deficit and effective measures on the structural deficit and the number and quality of reforms to be carried out “ Has he told Reuters on the sidelines of the IMF meeting in Washington (see p. 8). It calls for changes to France before his copy to make Wednesday at the Commission.

From the beginning, the debate on the French budget rages behind the scenes. And numerous anonymous sources in Brussels repeated that he did not pass the ramp treaties. But public about Jeroen Dijsselbloem are poorly spent in Paris. “It is we who decide the budget” , reacted Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, asking its European partners “respect” France. “Mr. Dijsselbloem is not Europe” , said Michel Sapin, having explained with his Dutch counterpart in Washington. Seeking to calm the situation, the European Commission is her silence, saying she had not, at this stage, “formed his opinion on the French budget plan” .

Discussions incessant

Paris does not intend to review its by Wednesday. “How can we really think that we could send to Brussels a different document than the one we have already presented to Parliament? “, is do we wonder within the executive. Then open a discussion phase to the end of the month with the outgoing Commission, then the first half of November with the new Commission. “Our goal is to understand and share our thinking on Europe, not to change the rules of the game” , we continue to Paris.

In fact, discussions are already constant to prevent the Commission issues a negative opinion on the French budget. Paris pleads “exceptional circumstances” in conjunction with a very low growth and inflation in the euro area to justify the postponement of his 2017 deficit target of 3% of GDP. But the argument does not fly to Brussels. In fact, the heart of the discussion focused on the effort to bring the accounts structural balance (excluding cyclical effects). Paris expects a structural adjustment of 0.1 percent of GDP this year and 0.2 next year, far from the 0.8 recommended by the issue. This gap has shocked European partners some of whom, such as Portugal, recalled the efforts they have them made. “But metric unchanged, our structural adjustment is within the margin of acceptability of the Commission”, we plead to Paris, where the emphasis is on the 21 billion planned economies. Treatment of tax credits, the impact of inflation, estimation of potential growth, etc., technical discussions are ongoing between Bercy services and those of the Commission.

There remains one cartridge that has Paris shoot well to win leniency from the Commission. That of a specific reform agenda. For this, the economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, plans to unveil in the coming weeks the main lines of his law for growth. And without waiting for the presentation to the Council of Ministers at the end of the year.

Frederick Schaeffer, Les Echos