Deficit: the Court of Auditors pin to government forecasts – Le Figaro

GRAPHICS – The Sages do not believe that the deficit of France will reach 2.7% of GDP in 2017, arguing that the stability program presented in April does not have “the necessary reforms.” New spending (employment, farmers, civil servants, etc.) are singled out.

As Brussels there two months, the Court of Auditors does not believe in the goal of France to bring its public deficit to 2.7% of GDP in 2017. however, it is more optimistic for 2016 which it considers the 3.3% deficit target (against 3.6% in 2015) “attainable” and “modest”, “although significant risks to the state spending,” note the Sages in their annual report on the situation and outlook for public finances.

Concernant revenue, government projections appear generally strong, since they are based on a macroeconomic scenario considered realistic by the High Council of public finances in its opinion on the stability program last April. But this diagnosis, finalized on June 22, must now be interpreted subject to the possible consequences of the “Brexit” decided by the British on June 24, although the government and economists seem to rule out an impact on 2016 growth.

While “respect the deficit target requires (…) a very strict management of expenses and leaves no room for new decisions leading to spending increases,” the Court of Auditors refers to stage a risk of exceeding between 3.2 and 6.4 billion euros. According to her, respecting the state’s spending target and already seems already compromised and “might become impossible to ascertain if additional expenditures were to be decided by the end of the year.”

Main sources of skid: new spending decided and announced since the beginning of the year (plan for employment, aid to farmers, increase in compensation of employees etc.), up to almost 2 5 billion and “sub-recurring budgétisations” of around 2 billion euros. “The many announcements of new public expenditure, which are neither funded nor pledged by sustainable economies pose a risk on French public finances in 2016 but even more in subsequent years.”

These announced measures, combined with the planned increase in military spending, “will push spending on the rise, up about 0.3 percent of GDP in 2017″. Since the parallel government set a target of control very ambitious spending, while the policies implemented in recent years are hardly promising medium-term savings, the Court found that “in 2017, the objective of deficit is a high risk of not being achieved. “