There was no longer much suspense since the Council of Ministers had authorized the government to use it. Wednesday evening, shortly before midnight, Élisabeth Borne therefore triggered the 12th article 49.3 since she became Prime Minister. As a reminder, this article of the Constitution allows the government to have a text adopted without a vote, as long as the Assembly does not vote on a motion of censure immediately. This time, it concerns the public finance programming bill. A technical text on the trajectory for reducing the public deficit requested by the European Union from Member States, so that they can benefit from the post-Covid European support fund.
In this case, Élisabeth Borne breaks a promise – which, Emmanuel Macron later clarified, was her sole responsibility – made after the pension reform: no longer use 49.3 on non-financial texts. Since the constitutional reform of 2008, the use of 49.3 has been regulated: on financial texts, it is open bar. For the rest, it is one per session, and there is one session per year, from October to June; sometimes one or two extraordinary sessions, in July and/or the end of September, like this week. However, the public finance programming bill may talk big money, but it is not a financial text.
The open bar starts soon
The government intends to take advantage of the 49.3 open bar on financial texts from the end of October, with the opening of the “budget season” which will occupy Parliament throughout the end of the year. The majority and the executive have long been convinced that these 49.3 were not serious. “For me, it’s very specific,” explains MoDem Élodie Jacquier-Laforge. This is the text which says whether you are in the majority or in the opposition, and I understand that the oppositions do not vote on the budget. So, in this matter, the 49.3 poses no problem for me. » It is true that in a parliamentary democracy, the budget is the most important text of the year and sets the boundary between supporters and opponents of the government. It is also true that it was not the 49.3 on the budget last year that brought people out into the streets.
In any case, this weapon frees the government from finding compromises with the oppositions – sometimes even with its own majority. Result, the text – indeed – the most important of the year will not be approved by the national representation for the second year in a row, and there is a strong chance that it will last five years: a total oddity on the scale of large parliamentary democracies, where the vote on the budget is precisely the only moment when the government cannot escape.
Accounts
So, how many 49.3s this year? There are two finance bills: that of the State, the PLF, and that of Social Security, the PLFSS. Each has two parts, revenue and expenditure. Each of its parts will benefit from at least two readings in the Assembly. So that’s at least eight 49.3s by the end of November. There is then a final definitive reading of each text, which adds two more 49.3. So here we are at ten, as in 2022. By the end of the year, the public finance programming law will come back for final reading, with a new 49.3.
There are even a few more: it is very likely that by the end of 2023, the government will need – this is very common – to pass an amending budget for the current year: a PLFR. Same sanction: a revenue part and an expenditure part each time, at least two readings for each part. This adds five 49.3s.
Still 49.3 in 2024
After the budgetary marathon, the start of 2024 should be marked in the Assembly by the arrival of the immigration bill. For the moment, each group is hiding behind its red lines. The right does not want to hear about the regularization of undocumented workers in professions in tension and insists on the part which toughens the conditions of expulsion. The left is almost the opposite, and the majority does not want to give up anything. Unless the government ends up abandoning the text or risks a vote with a very uncertain result – which is not at all excluded – it will then need three new 49.3s to pass its text.
In the worst case scenario between now and spring, the government could therefore have to assume twenty 49.3. At least seventeen between now and Christmas, that’s the prognosis in any case. 20 minutes. And what is yours?