The European Commission opened the way, Wednesday June 19, to procedures for excessive public deficits against seven countries of the European Union (EU), including France, where spending promises are multiplying two weeks before legislative elections.
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Every six months, the figures for the public deficit and the debt of grandpas members of the European Union are officially published, sometimes with sanctions involved. And this Wednesday, more than a third of EU countries are in the red and seven of them, including France and Italy, are placed under “excessive deficit procedure”.
Seven countries in the European Union have allowed their public spending to slip so far that it exceeds 3% of their gross domestic product. Besides France, these procedures “ are justified » for Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Malta, the Commission announced. Romania had already been subject to this disciplinary procedure since 2019.
The stability pact which governs the member countries of the single currency was reformed in December but it retains this sacrosanct threshold, recalls our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet.
These countries have to worry because for some they are well beyond the pale. On the podium of the three worst performers, Italy with 7.7% public deficit, just before Hungary and Romania.
The worst students
France comes just behind with a deficit of five and a half percent of GDP. Europeans all reached record deficits during the pandemic but most have largely absorbed them, to the point that four countries are in a budget surplus.
The page on the pandemic has now been turned and the Commission will have to signal the end of recess, especially for the worst of the bad students, who in addition to the deficit are breaking the public debt ceilings: this is set at 60% of GDP and Italy reached 137% and France 110%. These two countries have for the moment escaped surveillance because they have proposed measures to clean up their finances. For France, the upcoming elections constitute a mortgage: in fact we are worried here on the one hand about the large public spending program of the National Rally and on the other hand about the program of the New Popular Front which wants to leave the Stability Pact .
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Formally, the European executive will propose to member states to open the procedures during an upcoming meeting of finance ministers on July 16, according to Agence France Presse.