Deep voice, deep tone. During his transfer of power with Gabriel Attal, Michel Barnier assured that he wanted to “tell the truth” about “financial debt and ecological debt”. But will he really be able to demonstrate transparency? In the current budgetary context, the truth about financial debt and ecological debt risks disturbing more than one person. Will the new Prime Minister be able to explain to the French the driving forces behind an ecological transition whose inflationary effect is already being predicted? Tensions over raw materials, the additional cost of green technologies, taxes on energy and imported products… There are multiple sources of price increases.
“Containing global warming below 1.5°C could add 1.6% to inflation each year over the next decade,” warned executives at asset management firm Carmignac. In France, annual inflation could remain around 4% after peaking at 6.9% in 2023. This will probably be added to more than 10 euro cents at the pump if Europe extends its CO2 quota system to the transport sector, as it has planned.
Review the budget rules?
The French will have to be made to pay the “real” price of CO2 in one way or another, justify the economists, who also plan a system of shock absorbers for the most vulnerable people. But how to put this explosive subject on the table? So far, no one has taken the risk.
Another taboo subject is the financing of the transition. The Pisani-Mahfouz report estimated the additional public spending needed between 25 and 34 billion euros by 2030. But these figures already seem outdated and the country’s finances are drained. Several experts are calling for new budgetary rules, more flexible when it comes to fighting climate change. Will Michel Barnier dare to put the subject on the table when Europe has just emerged from several months of trying negotiations on this subject? Not sure. In politics more than anywhere else, not all truths are good to tell.