By Louise Rasmussen and Dominique Vidalon
PARIS, Jan 16 (Reuters) – France’s government is now expected to force through a 2026 budget bill without a vote in parliament after months of talks with lawmakers failed to reach a compromise.
Bypassing parliament to get the budget passed would inevitably trigger a no confidence motion, which could lead to the collapse of government, unless it includes revisions to the bill that placate Socialist lawmakers.
“We tried. We went as far as we could,” Laurent Panifous, a junior minister in charge of relations with parliament, said of three months of trying to find a deal on the budget in parliament.
Talks were suspended by the government on Friday.
LECORNU WILL PROPOSE AMENDED BUDGET ON FRIDAY
Investors and ratings agencies are scrutinising Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s attempts to reduce France’s fiscal deficit which is the highest in the euro zone.
Lecornu will later on Friday propose an amended draft of the budget bill, officials said.
He is now looking at how to pass that new bill without a vote in parliament, despite the likelihood opposition lawmakers will respond with a vote of no confidence, Panifous told BFM TV.
“What is the most important thing for the prime minister?” Panifous said. “It’s the budget — it’s not about whether the government stays … More important than a no-confidence vote, more important than a dissolution: for the prime minister and his government, the budget is what matters most.”
NO EASY WAY TO BYPASS PARLIAMENT
Lecornu could choose to invoke Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows the government to push through a bill without a vote, unless lawmakers back a vote of no confidence. But he had for months vowed not to do that, saying he wished for parliament to come to an agreement.
The alternative could be to invoke Article 47 – an executive order also allowing the government to pass the budget without a vote.
With that second option, which has never been used to pass a finance bill, the budget would be adopted independently of whether motions of no confidence succeed. With Article 49.3, the budget is not adopted if the government falls.
But using Article 47 is not necessarily the easier option, not least because many lawmakers are against it.
LECORNU WANTS TO LIMIT DEFICIT TO 5% OF GDP
The Socialists’ pointman on the budget, Philippe Brun, said his group has a number of demands on the budget, adding that he would back a no confidence vote “without hesitation” if the government tried to pass the budget by executive order.
Lecornu has said the budget must keep the fiscal deficit to a maximum of 5% of economic output, but ministers have warned that lawmakers had been working on a version with a deficit closer to 5.4%.
France’s political situation has been fragile since 2022, when President Emmanuel Macron lost his majority in parliament.
His problems worsened when he called early legislative elections in mid-2024, only to deliver a hung parliament split between three distinct ideological blocs: his centre-right alliance, the left, and the far-right National Rally.
(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Writing by Leigh Thomas and Ingrid Melander; editing by Toby Chopra)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.