Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne brought together her ministers on Thursday evening to launch a new public “expenditure review” which will help generate 12 billion euros in savings in 2025, Matignon announced. Aid to businesses, or “medical devices” will be examined in particular, according to Borne services.
While the debt burden will be the first item of State expenditure in 2027, and the government wants to return the public deficit below 3% of GDP in the same year, “it is time to normalize public expenditure and to rebuild financial margins,” was to essentially explain the Prime Minister, according to her services.
The 12 billion to be saved in 2025 are “an important step”, but “attainable”, since it is less than 1% of public spending, according to Matignon: “This requires collective mobilization, where the direct involvement of the Prime Minister. »
She presented the review alongside the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire and the Minister of Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave, whose services will monitor the reviews carried out by various inspections.
“A first step”
Thursday marks “a first step before a new round of missions” in December, and the review exercise will now be annual, confirmed Matignon, stressing that it is “notable to speak in mid-November 2023 of the preparation of the 2025 budget” . The maquis of 110 billion euros of annual aid to businesses will be the subject of a review, because they contain duplicates, or for some have antagonistic goals, according to the government which does not see in this study any inconsistency with its supply policy.
While wanting to “continue to ensure access to care and the preservation of innovation”, the government will also launch a review of the approximately 80,000 “medical devices”, ranging from dressings to scanners.
He will involve scientific experts. These devices cost 16 billion euros per year, 48% more than in 2012, with some having a bad ecological impact. Machines alone to combat sleep apnea currently cost 850 million euros per year, an increase of 46% compared to 2016.
The results of these missions should be known in early March. The spending reviews launched in 2023 – there will be around twenty over the year – have made it possible, according to the government, to save two billion euros for 2024.