The government is too optimistic about the rebound in GDP in 2021. He supports it the Parliamentary Budget Office, expressing perplexity about the +6% indicated by the executive in the budget law. "If, during the validation of the macroeconomic framework of the Nadef, the PBO had foreseen an increase in GDP in 2021 similar to that indicated by the Government - reads the Fiscal policy report 2021 published on Monday by the Office - the setback that emerges for this quarter is such as to reduce the carryover effect on next year, and therefore the growth prospects, for at least one percentage point".
Furthermore, the Parliamentary Budget Office also defines the estimate of the fiscal feedback contained in the draft budget law as "optimistic", especially as regards the 2023, “year in which the estimate of the budget bill results overestimated by at least a quarter".
The report underlines that the evolution of public finance figures for the next three years is closely linked to macroeconomic forecasts "subject to downside risks”. And the PBO believes that it is risky for the deficit and debt trend "to entrust to these estimates the financing of measures, to increase expenditure or reduce revenues, with effects of a permanent nature, which would require structural coverage when fully operational".
In particular, the government believes that the debt will decrease again from next year (falling to 155,6% in 2021, 153,4% in 2022 and 151,5% in 2023), while the UPB estimates that, after a first descent in 2021, the ratio between debt and GDP can start growing again as early as 2022.
Finally, as regards the individual measures, the PBO's perplexities focus on the enabling bill under discussion in Parliament which sets general criteria for the restructuring of bonuses in favor of families and the creation of the new single check. For the Parliamentary Budget Office, "the draft law does not specify the precise criteria for the design of the check as regards both its size and the relationship with the ISEE (which constitutes a selectivity criterion for the new instrument) ”. The Upb, calculating that the "average net benefit" would correspond to around one thousand euros, underlines that a non-negligible share of families would find themselves with lower economic aid than today.
