Elisabeth Borne has announced that the ceiling on gas and electricity prices would be replaced in 2023 by more targeted devices. A political challenge in a context where prices continue to climb and the feeling of a degradation of the standard of living is generalized.
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After putting an end to “whatever it costs” health, the executive is about to disconnect the “whatever it costs” energetic. While the deputies of the various commissions of the National Assembly attacked this week the examination of the “package power package”, which mobilizes more than 20 billion euros for households in a context of prices increase, the government Prepares spirits for a gradual decrease in aid from 2023.
“You have to go from general mechanisms to more targeted mechanisms,” said Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, Saturday July 9, on the sidelines of a trip to the economic meetings of Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du -Rhône). “We are at the heart of the peak of inflation which will last for another several months, so it is necessary to move to a more targeted support,” added the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, the same day, Recalling “with great gravity” the tense situation of public finances.
Since the fall of 2021, nearly 50 billion euros have been unlocked to support the purchasing power of households, taking into account the “package” soon examined in Parliament. Either one of the highest amounts in Europe in absolute value, according to the European Think Tank Bruegel .
The executive has already started this movement by announcing, a few days ago, replacing the discount of 18 cents of Euro per liter to the pump with a new aid distributed under income condition, which will be less expensive: 2 billions of euros per year, compared to 800 million euros per month. A similar approach must be retained in 2023 for the various “price shields”, set up in October 2021 and which cap the prices of electricity and gas until the end of the year.
These two devices are by far the most expensive of the arsenal deployed to support households in the face of prices: almost 20 billion euros since fall 2021 to absorb the only rise in gas prices and electricity and make it painless for households, even if the invoice for public finances will be spread over several years.
After two years of health crisis, public finances are in a degraded state, argues the government, as the Court of Auditors recently pointed out and the High Council for Public Finance. And if the European Commission suspended the stability pact until the end of 2023, it is still waiting for Paris to send it its multi -year public finance trajectory, supposed to explain how France plans to bring the public deficit under 3 % of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2027.
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