The agreement between deputies and senators on the amending budget leaves the elected representatives of the left “bitter”
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The meeting only lasted an hour and a half, but it was enough for the seven deputies and seven senators meeting in a joint joint committee (CMP), Wednesday evening August 3, to reach an agreement on the amending finances (PLFR) for 2022. ” It’s a success. We were told a month ago that it was not possible to gather a majority on a budget text: we are doing it”, rejoices Jean-René Cazeneuve (Gers, Renaissance), the general rapporteur of the budget at the National Assembly.
Worth 44 billion euros, this amending budget allocates 20 billion euros to finance the measures included in purchasing power billadopted definitively on Wednesday, and 9.7 billion euros in loans to finance the renationalization of EDF. In particular, it provides for the abolition of the audiovisual fee, the increase in aid for the purchase of fuel from 18 to 30 euro cents per liter, the raising of the tax exemption ceiling for overtime from 5,000 to 7,500 euros , the possibility of repurchase of the RTT by the employers as well as an envelope of aids of 600 million euros to the territorial collectivities.
On Wednesday afternoon, uncertainty hovered over the outcome of these discussions in the corridors of the National Assembly, as the debates around the emergency measures taken by the executive to counter inflation have been divisive in Parliament since the start of their exam on July 11. Worn by weariness, the parliamentarians hoped, however, to avoid lengthening their work, which could delay the adoption of this text beyond August 7.
Three ” blocking points ” remained at the center of the negotiations, in particular between the presidential camp and the right: the sustainability of the increase in the ceiling for tax-exempt overtime hours as well as the possibility of buying back RTT beyond December 2023; compensation for local authorities; the reallocation of the exceptional back-to-school bonus to beneficiaries of the activity bonus to the detriment of recipients of social minima. Three measures which were defended in the Senate, during the examination of the text in first reading.
“Come out on top”
In CMP, the senators of the senatorial majority (right and center) finally agreed with the presidential camp to set a deadline for the possibility for employers to buy back the RTT on December 31, 2025. On the other hand, the raising of the ceiling of tax exemption for overtime is instituted without time limit, in accordance with an amendment from the senatorial right. “We have the feeling that we have a text that corresponds more to what we wanted: to have a revaluation through work of purchasing power and not just income that falls from the sky”, supports Senator Les Républicains (LR) from Hauts-de-Seine Christine Lavarde.
In this sense, the exceptional back-to-school bonus, which the government planned to pay up to 100 euros to the four million beneficiaries of social minima, was reviewed and corrected on Wednesday evening. The elected representatives of the right and the center had voted on Wednesday an amendment to redirect this bonus exclusively to low-income workers already receiving the activity bonus or to beneficiaries of the allowance for disabled adults (AAH). The adoption of this measure against the advice of the government triggered the bronca of the parliamentary left.
The majority chose to mix the two devices. The exceptional back-to-school bonus will thus be paid to beneficiaries of social minima and to those of the activity bonus. To finance such a measure, the initial envelope of 1 billion euros was bailed out by an additional 100 million euros by the government, which had not yet defined on Wednesday evening the methods for calculating this bonus. “It allows everyone to come out on top, after this iniquitous and scandalous amendment voted by the right in the Senate”believes Rémi Féraud, socialist senator from Paris.
According to Jean-René Cazeneuve, the total of these expenses does not represent any departure from the line that Bercy had set itself: 350 million euros of maximum additional expenses in the National Assembly as in the Senate, in order to stay in the trajectory of the 5% budget deficit.
Bitter Leftists
Another major provision concerned the financial compensation of local authorities, in particular the departments affected by the revaluation of the active solidarity income (RSA), and the municipalities, which suffer from the increase in their operating expenses linked to inflation. Via an amendment by the socialist deputy of Puy-de-Dôme Christine Pirès Beaune estimated at 350 million euros, the National Assembly had imposed this issue which had not been initially taken into account by the government. In the Senate, an additional 250 million euros have been added to this envelope to reach 600 million euros. One of the few “advanced” unanimously welcomed in this amending budget.
Nevertheless, at the end of this CMP, the left-wing elected officials are bitter. They castigate “a real ideological convergence” between LR and the presidential camp. “The government has developed gasworks so as not to increase wages. He finds all the possible means not to do it – bonuses, overtime tax exemption, buyout of RTT – while breaking the legal framework for work, that’s where we have regret and anger ”advances the chairman of the finance committee at the National Assembly, Eric Coquerel (Seine-Saint-Denis, La France insoumise).
Far from these considerations, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, congratulated the “ compromise ” found “responsible” on the measures “emergency” for purchasing power by deputies and senators, in a tweet published overnight from Wednesday to Thursday. Before being definitively adopted, this amending budget must however be submitted to a final vote on Thursday afternoon in both chambers.
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