understand the voting issues, the timetable to be respected and the possible scenarios

The preparation of the budget for 2025 is pending the formation of Michel Barnier’s new government, which will be tasked with taking up the project left by the resigned ministers before submitting the bill to Parliament. The examination process for this important text is, however, several weeks behind the usual schedule, which would require the High Council of Public Finances to issue its opinion in mid-September.

What is at stake in the preparation of the 2025 budget?

The Government must submit the budget to Parliament, which must be definitively adopted before the end of the year to allow the State and the administrations to function from 1^Ahem January. In the absence of a budget voted and published on 31 December, and therefore of allocated resources, public administrations would be unable to pay civil servants, pay state suppliers, invoices, etc. This situation has never occurred in the history of the V.^my Republic.

In addition to this essential aspect for the functioning of the State, François Ecalle, founder of Fipeco, an information site on public finances, raises a series of macroeconomic questions, which relate to “the economic policy of public finances”. Consistency with the objectives of the stability programme, compliance with the budgetary rules set by the European Union or even the concern of the financial markets about the country’s debt are elements that the government must integrate. It states that with “With the new European budget rules, we should make an effort to restore our public finances, either by limiting our spending or by increasing taxes, in the order of 15 billion euros per year, for five to seven years.” The complex equation consists of the National Assembly and the Senate adopting a budget knowing “reassure our creditors and our European partners”.

What is the theoretical timetable to be respected?

The preparation of the budget is part of a preparatory process that began in the spring. The Organic Law on Finance Laws (LOLF, which is the equivalent of the State’s “Financial Constitution”) provides that the government must present to parliamentarians, before 15 July, an initial assessment of the expenditure incurred for the coming year.

Before being proposed to the National Assembly, the draft finance law (PLF) is submitted to the Higher Council of Public Finances, for an opinion on the “coherence of the bill, (…) as well as [sur] the realism of the bill’s revenue and expenditure forecasts”and to the Council of State, which verifies the financial evaluations of each of the articles. The project must then be submitted to the Council of Ministers before being presented to the National Assembly, no later than the first Tuesday in October (i.e. 1 October).^Ahem October of this year).

Parliamentarians have a maximum of seventy days to examine, modify and vote on the text, which can then be submitted to the Constitutional Council, after being referred to a group of deputies or senators, to assess the conformity of the PLF measures with the Constitution.

The law must be enacted and published in Official Journal no later than December 31st so that credits can be committed from December 1st^Ahem January.

What are the possible scenarios this year?

With the dissolution of the National Assembly and then the resignation of the Attal government on 16 July, the theoretical timetable has already been disrupted. The document containing the first budget elements and the planned expenditure, called a “separate printout”, was not sent to parliamentarians in mid-July: a document containing this information was sent to parliamentarians on 2 September, following threats from the president and the rapporteur of the National Assembly’s finance committee, Eric Coquerel (La France insoumise, LFI) and Charles de Courson (Libertés, independents, overseas territories and territories, LIOT), to come and collect them themselves at Bercy.

• Move the exam to the Assembly

Before the appointment of the new Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, the outgoing government was considering postponing the transmission of the PLF to Parliament by a few days, bypassing the deadlines of the LOLF. On the basis of the Constitution, which provides for a review period of seventy days in Parliament plus five days by the Constitutional Council, “We can thus present a budget a week, or even fifteen days after the 1st^Ahem October “two sources within the executive branch agreed.

• Modify the text by amendment.

Even if more time is granted, the future Barnier government does not have much time left to fundamentally reform the budget compared to the draft of the resigning team. On the one hand, it can present the text as it is, to be submitted to Parliament in due time, and secondly, modify the text by amendments. In fact, the government is completely free to add expenditure or budget cuts, increase or reduce taxes, etc.

Parliamentarians, on the other hand, are very limited in their proposals for amending the budget; according to Article 40 of the Constitution, they cannot lead to either an increase in expenditure or a reduction in resources.

• Activate section 49.3 at risk of a vote of no confidence

Once finalised, the PLF must be voted on by a majority of parliamentarians. If not, the government could resort to Article 49.3. But it would have to deal with the political balance in the Assembly and with a probable motion of censure which, if approved by a majority of deputies, would lead to the rejection of the text and the resignation of the government. The deputy of the National Rally (RN), Jean-Philippe Tanguy, said on Thursday that his group would vote in favour of a motion of censure against Michel Barnier’s government in the event of a tax increase.

The government can invoke other mechanisms provided for by the Constitution to approve the text: Article 47 provides for two eventualities.

Should parliamentary debates stall for more than seventy days without a vote being reached, the government can regain control and implement the provisions of its budget bill by ordinance. This setup has never occurred in the history of the V.^my Republic.

Finally, if the PLF is not adopted before the end of the year, the government can request through a special law to continue collecting taxes and opening credits, until the last budget is voted. This provision could be considered in the configuration in which the executive would not be able to find a majority on the text and would have too short a timetable to present a new project and vote on it before the end of the year. This special law must still be approved by Parliament before the end of the year.

This provision was already activated during the V^my Republic, in particular in 1979 for the 1980 budget, after the Constitutional Council had censured the entire finance law at the end of December (for formal reasons): Parliament voted in the last days of the year on this special law authorising the increase in the tax.

• Article 16 of the Constitution, as a last resort

In an extreme case, some constitutionalists foresee the possibility of resorting to Article 16, which grants the President of the Republic exceptional powers on a temporary basis in the event of “serious and immediate threat” relating in particular to “fulfillment of its international commitments” (such as the need to submit a budget to the European Union, for example) or“interruption of the regular functioning of the constitutional public powers” (if no expenditure guarantees the functioning of the State).