Comments
The French Government on Wednesday announced a budget for 2014 that contains record high debt of 95.1 per cent of gross domestic product, a rise from this year’s 93.4 per cent.
For 2015, debt as a proportion of GDP is expected to shrink to the 94.3 per cent that was originally forecast for 2014, the government said.
The 2014 financial plan included a budget deficit of 3.6 per cent of GDP. The deficit is set to slip back below the 3 per cent mark set by the EU’s Maastricht Treaty. The EU commission had given France two further years until 2015 to meet the requirements.
On Thursday, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici is to present the budget plan to EU currency commissioner Olli Rehn.
Last week, in a television interview, Moscovici blamed the previous government of Nicolas Sarkozy for allowing the debt to balloon. The debt was already running at more than 90 per cent of GDP when the current Socialist government took over in 2012, he pointed out.
The increase is partly explained by France’s contributions to eurozone bailout and stabilisation programmes. France is the second-biggest contributor, after Germany, to the European Stability Mechanism, the Eurozone’s permanent rescue fund.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.