The process is always the same. The message too, a few words. Once again, Emmanuel Macron spoke in a major Anglo-Saxon media to attack the stability and growth pact head-on. Created in 1997, this mechanism requires each state in the euro zone a double ceiling of 3 % of GDP for the public deficit and 60 % for public debt. Already, in 2019, the President of the Republic declared, in an interview with The Economistthat these rules were “a debate from another century”.
Rebelote two years later. He then co -signed, with former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a platform in the Financial Times To denounce “obscure and excessively complex” obligations. On February 14, Emmanuel Macron, this time interviewed directly by the economic daily, put a room in the machine, claiming that the “financial and monetary framework in which we live is obsolete”. This offensive was succeeded on the same day the proposal of the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to alleviate the budgetary rules to allow the member states to invest in the defense. From water to the mill of the Head of State, who also campaigns for the support of the future sectors such as artificial intelligence and energy transition.
A calculated output
This attack in good standing seems all the more programmed since it intervened the day after the publication by the Court of Auditors of a severe report in which the magistrates alert on “the slip of the public deficit for two years” which “places the France at the foot of the wall “. After several months of heated parliamentary debate that led The fall of the Barnier governmentafter the intense negotiations carried out by the Bayrou team, France has just equipped itself with a 2025 budget. Adopted to forceps, it must allow, according to government forecasts, to bring the public deficit to 5.4 % bring back GDP – After the 6.1 % estimated in 2024. A target that already doubts many experts.
To question the reduction trajectory of this burden is to forget the recall force of the financial markets. With the risk of seeing the rates from which we use soaked, which would penalize the entire economy. By making a rider alone, the President of the Republic forgets his Prime Minister, who recently reaffirmed the objective of returning below 3 % of deficit in 2029. And leaves him isolated in this time trial.