Taxes, pensions, constitutional reform, 80km/h … this Monday 29th April, 2019, the government team meets in seminar to discuss the measures of Emmanuel Macron.
A few days after the measures unveiled by Emmanuel Macron in response to the Yellow Vests crisis, the government tackles Monday 29th April, 2019 to the headache of their application and their funding, inviting parliamentarians to join his reflection during the meeting. ‘a seminar.
Read also: Retirement, taxes, RIC … here are the measures announced by Emmanuel Macron
Politics being above all “an art of execution”, as Edward Philippe likes to repeat, Mr. Macron’s ministers therefore have to concretely decline the range of measures taken out of the great debate, unveiled last Thursday by the head of the State.
Measures, method, schedule
Lower income tax, profound reorganization of the administration, decentralization, gestures for pensioners, carers and mothers living alone … “A revolution”, enthuses MoDem President François Bayrou, who will give everyone floor material in the coming weeks.
The government team, around the Prime Minister who should speak to the press on his arrival, therefore meets from 9am for a day’s work. “The opportunity to discuss the measures, the method, the schedule, so all the operational implementation of the announcements of the president,” summarizes the government.
But this “will not be a mere government seminar as we have known since the beginning of the term”, at a rate of one per quarter, had warned last week the spokesman of the government Sibeth Ndiaye.
Constitutional reform
Representatives of the majority (group presidents in the Assembly and Senate, committee chairs, general rapporteurs) are indeed invited from noon. A way to put oil in the wheels of the majority parliamentary – executive axis, while MPs had strongly regretted not having been better listened and associated during the crisis of “yellow vests”.
Four workshops are planned in the afternoon, including one on the parliamentary calendar, which will anticipate the bottling of legislation until the summer, and another on the working method.
The seminar will also look at constitutional reform, while Emmanuel Macron now plans 20% proportional to elect MPs, while conceding to the Senate a smaller reduction in the number of parliamentarians compared to his intention to leave (25% rather than 30%).
Finally, a workshop will discuss “new solidarities”, namely dependency, the status of carers etc.
The missing envelope
But the most delicate equation goes to Bercy, who will have to find ways to finance measures, such as the 5 billion euros income tax cut.
Oppositions were quickly engulfed in this breach. Republican boss Laurent Wauquiez has lambasted the lack of “serious” announcements on the decline in public spending when Marine Le Pen pinned on Sunday the “vagueness” of these ads that will be “not followed by effect”.
“The budget trajectory is not changed,” gleefully assured in return on Friday the boss of MEPs LREM Gilles Le Gendre to challenge any uncertainty.
Even tackling some tax loopholes as announced by Macron, this is tantamount to a challenge: the economist Jean Pisani-Ferry, coordinator of the presidential program, estimated in the Journal du Dimanche to “20 billion euros, or 1% of the country’s GDP “envelope to find by 2021. And, to complicate the deal, the president said he was ready to compromise on the expected cut of 120 000 officials by the end of the five-year period, to ensure a better network of the territory.
Towards a development of 80km/h?
While Jean-Paul Delevoye has been working for months on a comprehensive reform of the pension system, details are expected to offset the reindexing of pensions on inflation and the promise of a minimum pension of 1000 euros for those who will have a career complete. The head of state said he wanted to operate two levers: the extension of the contribution period and incentives to work longer.
Other points could be addressed, such as lowering the speed to 80 km/h, according to Sibeth Ndiaye. It will be a question of “how one can make sure that there is not a brutal application, uniform throughout the territory,” she said Sunday.
Sibeth Ndiaye sur les 80km/h: une application “plus souple ou plus adaptée” peut être discutée “au cas par cas” pic.twitter.com/M0Ctk2IHmH
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) April 28, 2019
