BRUSSELS, June 19, (AP): The European Union's executive arm on Wednesday criticized France for running up excessive debt, a stinging rebuke at the height of an election campaign where President Emmanuel Macron is facing a strong challenge from the extreme right and the left.
The EU Commission recommended to seven nations, including France, that they start a so-called "excessive deficit procedure,” the first step in a long process before any member state can be hemmed in and moved to take corrective action.
"Deficit criteria is not fulfilled in seven of our member states," said EU Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, pointing the finger at Belgium, France, Italy, Hungary, Malta, Slovakia and Poland, in addition to France.
For decades, the EU has set out targets for member states to keep their annual deficit within 3% of Gross Domestic Product and overall debt within 60% of output. Those targets have been disregarded when it was convenient, sometimes even by countries like Germany and France, the biggest economies in the bloc.
This time, however, Dombrovskis said that a decision "needs to be done based on, say, facts and whether the country respects the treaty, reference values for a deficit and debt and not based on the size of the country.”
The French annual deficit stood at 5.5% last year.
Over the past years, exceptional circumstances like the COVID-19 crisis and the war in Ukraine allowed for leniency, but that has now come to an end.
Still, Wednesday's announcement touched a nerve in France, after Macron called snap elections in the wake of his defeat to the hard right of Marine Le Pen in the EU parliamentary polls on June 9.