The European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, believes that France will limit its budgetary deficit to 3% of GDP in 2017.
Moscovici said that he had faith that France could meet its budgetary commitments taken at European level, such as bringing its government deficit below the 3% of GDP mark this year, with a view to coming out of excessive deficit procedure next year (see EUROPE 11793). The additional budgetary efforts made mean that there is no question that France will succeed, he told EUROPE 1 on Friday 25 August.
The Commission added that the 3% of GDP deficit objective was not a “target” but a “limit”, with deficit expected to fall “well below” this threshold in the coming years. He went on to say that achieving a deficit of 3% of GDP was not the greatest of glories, given that the average deficit of the EU member states currently stands at 1.3% of GDP.
The Commissioner echoed his own comments of July, that the measures envisaged by the French government had credibility in terms of meeting the country's budgetary commitments (see EUROPE 11829).
Readers may recall that France must save €4.5 billion this year to achieve the objective of a deficit of 3% of GDP, but the entire detailed raft of measures taken to this end has not yet been made public. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)