Emmanuel Macron is preparing to make decisive arbitrations to plan the army budget for the period 2024-2030, during several defense councils scheduled by the end of the year.
by Elise Vincent
This is undoubtedly the subject which, since the start of the school year in September, most devour the jobs of the time of staffs, the Ministry of the Armed Forces, the General Directorate of Armaments and many specialized advisers de Bercy, de l’Elysée and Matignon. But it is also, Secret-Defense obliges, the one on which the most discretion hovers. The negotiations around the future military programming law (LPM), which must plan the necessary budget for the army model whose France will be equipped by 2030, are progressing slowly. But, according to our information, a certain number of decisive arbitrations should finally be rendered by Emmanuel Macron by January 2023.
While the text could be presented in Parliament from March 2023, several defense tips must be devoted to LPM by Christmas. These presidential arbitrations will not exhaust all negotiations. The very fact of stopping a deadline tense certain actors in the file. The main lines of the future bill should nevertheless be stopped soon, starting with any renunciations or discrepancies of programs, in particular frigates, bursts of burst or armored vehicles, which make states feverish.
For several months, discussions have been around an envelope of 400 billion euros over seven years, ranging from 2024 to 2030. A colossal budget of 100 billion more than the previous LPM, which covered the period 2019- 2025, with 295 billion euros. But this budget already appears devoured by the dizzying increase in inflation and energy costs, jostled by the revival of the world’s arms race, while being corseted by the planning of French deterrent, marked At least until 2060. “It explodes everywhere,” says an initiate.
cyber and space
The Elysée would have chosen, however, not to block with the “experience of experience) fluctuating war in Ukraine. “We must not sacrifice everything in the face of the urgency of current crises,” said one of the main players in the file. “The objective is to ask the right questions. The goal is not to immediately decide to increase or decrease the number of Leclerc tanks, this is not the issue. The goal , is to define an overall programming, “he adds. On the general financial envelope, “there is no framing, ensures this source, unlike the often advanced figures. We must however prepare all the possible scenarios to respond to the constant changes in the international context. We are forced to do of bets “.
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