"It is not serious to say that we will not repay the debt", explains Moscovici

INTERVIEW

A health crisis, but also an economic one.

The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire recently revised downwards the French growth forecasts for the year 2021. Social plans are multiplying and companies, impacted by two confinements, risk bankruptcy.

French public debt could reach nearly 120% of GDP in 2020, due to the economic support measures introduced by the government in the face of the Covid-19 crisis.

On Europe 1, Pierre Moscovici, First President of the Court of Auditors, asks the question of the sustainability of this public debt. 

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"We cannot guarantee that the public debt is canceled"

If France can currently finance the debt thanks to low interest rates and a good signature, Pierre Moscovici evokes the future.

"The French who are listening to us are happy to have public spending that accompanies this painful situation, but they also know that it is their money. And it is their children who will pay tomorrow."

In the event of a rise in interest rates or inflation, what about the sustainability of public debt? 

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"We cannot guarantee that the public debt is canceled. It is not serious to say 'we will not reimburse it', it is not true", explains the Prime President of the Court of Auditors.

"We can extend it, manage it well, we can pool it in part, this is what the European Union is doing with a plan that I find welcome. The European Central Bank is playing a role in 2020 than it was playing not during the 2008 financial crisis by absorbing part of the debt, but

, we always repay the debt, "he assures us. 

"Neither the mandate nor the governance of the European Central Bank allow the debt to be canceled," said Pierre Moscovici, responding to Arnaud Montebourg, former Minister of the Economy and Productive Recovery, who ensured that the debt could be canceled via the buy-back mechanism of this instance and that the scenario was on the table. 

Predictability, readability and evaluation

"The Court of Auditors is not the champion of austerity. It is not there to denounce public spending", assures Pierre Moscovici, supporting the exceptional support measures taken by the State, "in a difficult situation ".

"The public deficit is not a taboo. We know that we are not going to be below the 3% public deficit in the next five years. Public debt is not a totem".

"You have to be aware that when you spend a lot you have to spend well," he emphasizes, however. 

For better management of public money, the First President of the Court of Auditors sets out his three watchwords.

Firstly, predictability, with three-year public finance programming laws, which are more framing and restrictive, then readability.

"We are a country where 95,000 public operators can spend public money, against 15,000 in Germany," he emphasizes the need to consolidate to avoid fragmentation and division of revenues.

Finally, the evaluation.

"The Court of Auditors is there to ensure the proper management of public funds, it does so in the name of the Republic, for the citizen, in relation with the government and the Parliament", recalls the former Minister of Economy and Finance.

"I asked the Court of Auditors that all our controls, 2020 and 2021, be on the implementation of public policies to deal with the Covid crisis. At the end of 2021, we will produce our report annual public on the balance sheet ".

According to the first data already known, the decline in growth could be of the order of 11%, estimates Pierre Moscovici.