Macron’s promise to give money to Ukraine has caused a budgetary problem in France

The promised three billion euros to Ukraine by French President Emmanuel Macron is creating a budgetary problem for France.

This is reported by the newspaper Le Monde.

According to their information, the military aid of 3 billion euros per year for Ukraine, provided for in the agreement on support guarantees signed on February 16, is causing headaches for the country’s government: it is forced to cut expenses on other items and resort to various accounting tricks.

Already in February, the Minister of Finance announced the need to cut expenses by 10 billion euros; against this backdrop, spending on Ukraine raises questions among voters, say deputies from the pro-presidential party “La République En Marche,” which does not have a majority in parliament.

The government also proposes to include in the count the 3 billion euros already allocated for various multilateral programs (such as the Franco-Dutch-Ukrainian program for the purchase of self-propelled howitzers Caesar) and contributions to the European fund intended to compensate EU member states for military supplies to Ukraine made on a bilateral basis.

Ultimately, the newspaper writes, the government may be forced to introduce budget amendments to parliament. Opposition parties fundamentally vote against any budget proposals of the government, and one of the deputies from the far-left party “La France Insoumise,” Bastien Lachaud, even told Le Monde that military aid to Ukraine in France may suffer the same fate as in the United States, where it got stuck in the House of Representatives controlled by Republicans.

In France, there is a constitutional mechanism provided for by Article 49.3, allowing laws to be passed without the agreement of parliament – this is how, for example, Macron’s pension reform was adopted. However, this would be a blow to the political image of the president and would also lead to a vote of no confidence in the government, the newspaper writes.