Berlin accelerates on reforms, Paris seeks a budget: two governments at work on the accounts

The two largest economies of the European Union face the same knot in the same weekend — the ability of an executive to push through economic decisions — starting from opposite conditions.

In Germany the federal government is meeting on retreat in Neuhardenberg, in Brandenburg. Chancellor Friedrich Merz had anticipated to the weekly Bild am Sonntag his intention to ask ministers for a faster implementation of the reform package agreed before the summer break: taxation, pensions, easing of regulatory burdens on businesses, digitalization of the administration. The stated goal is to reduce costs borne by companies and restart growth. “In Germany growth and employment are at stake: it is the most important issue,” Merz said, according to the excerpt of the interview published by Investing.com (transl. from English).

The retreat’s schedule spans two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, and a second chapter that does not concern the economy: protection from major climate-related damaging events, starting with wildfires. The topic was also raised by the chancellor during a visit to firefighters in Hürtgenwald, reported by ZDFheute’s newsticker. The two items on the agenda well describe the German position: a government that has a majority and discusses the speed with which to apply what it has already decided, not whether it can decide it at all.

In Paris the question is precisely that one. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu sent a letter on Saturday, August 22, to deputies and senators asking for the adoption of a budget for 2027. The text was revealed by Le Parisien and confirmed to franceinfo. The head of government’s argument is that postponing the budget until after the presidential elections would create a vacuum: “Choosing to wait for the presidential elections to adopt a budget is choosing disorder” (transl. from French).

On the content of the French affair, it should be said immediately that the news currently comes from a single source (the prime minister’s letter, revealed by Le Parisien and picked up by franceinfo); no independent confirmation available.

The institutional context explains the executive’s concern. Without a majority in the National Assembly, the government must reckon with the possibility that the opposition parties converge on a vote against precisely while the presidential campaign turns every budget choice into an electoral argument. The technical alternative exists — the special law, the instrument that allows tax collection to continue in the absence of an approved budget — but the government itself had its effects assessed: a report commissioned in May from the Inspection générale des finances, published Thursday, warns that resorting to it would have serious consequences for the country. This is not a minor detail, because the alarm over the procedural way out comes from an internal oversight body within the finance administration, not from a political opponent.

What the two dossiers have in common is the distance between the announced decision and the implemented decision. Berlin has parliamentary consensus and discusses execution timelines, with a chancellor choosing the cabinet retreat as the venue to set internal deadlines. Paris has a budget program to write and does not have the numbers to approve it, and entrusts to a public letter the attempt to shift the confrontation ahead of the vote.

The next checkpoints have precise dates: the German cabinet meets in Neuhardenberg Tuesday and Wednesday, while in France the timeline for examining the 2027 budget will depend on the chambers’ response to Lecornu’s request.