Macron’s concessions set to blow out deficit
Call to sack UNAIDS chief
PARIS, Dec 11, (Agencies): France is on course to overshoot the European Union’s budget deficit ceiling next year without new spending cuts after President caved in to antigovernment street protests.
Macron announced wage increases for the poorest workers and a tax cut for most pensioners on Monday to defuse discontent, leaving his government scrambling to come up with extra budget savings or risk blowing through the EU’s 3 percent of GDP limit.
His concessions to protesters have put pressure on French bond yields with the spread over German yields spiking up to the highest level since May 2107.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe was due on Tuesday to address parliament to detail how the measures will be financed in a redraft of the budget weeks before it takes effect.
“Under all likelihood, the 2019 public deficit will print above the 3.0 percent benchmark,” Societe Generale economist Michel Martinez wrote in a research note.
However, the deficit was unlikely to hit 3.5 percent, as some French media suggested, because the government would look to offset the extra strain on the budget, he said.
The measures announced by Macron on Monday would put a 8-10 billion euro ($9.1-11.4 billion) hole in the budget, ministers said, on top of the 4 billion euros lost after Macron scrapped hikes to fuel taxes in a first wave of concessions last week.
“We are going to make savings, just as we have said we would, starting with savings in government and that’s for us to make happen,” government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux.
Macron
Spain’s central government says it will send in national police to ensure security in Catalonia if regional authorities fail to stop recent disruptions to major highways by pro-independence protesters.
The warnings follow the blocking of a highway across Catalonia for more than 15 hours on Saturday. Separatist groups on Sunday allowed cars to pass through without paying the mandatory toll.
Three cabinet members of the national government sent letters late on Tuesday urging their Catalan counterparts to explain why the Mossos d’Esquadra police, which is controlled by the regional government, didn’t intervene.
After last year’s independence attempt in the northeastern region led to an unprecedented political crisis, Catalan and central authorities began a timid dialogue in June when a new center-left administration took power in Madrid.
Delegates to a UN conference are laying out commitments to fight people trafficking and boost economic opportunities in the wake of pledging to cooperate on safe, orderly and humane migration.
Day two of the meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, on Tuesday comes a day after 164 countries adopted by acclamation the Global Compact on Migration, but with the notable absence of some countries including the United States.
High-level government envoys including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who attended Monday, have been at pains to dispel what they say is false information circulating about the nonbinding pact – such as claims it would force governments to accept migrants.
Proponents say the accord above all aims to monitor people flows, organize cooperation between states on managing human movements and prevent disorderly migration that threatens many lives.
The fate of UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe hung in the balance on Tuesday as he faced the agency’s oversight body after an expert report blasted his leadership and called for his removal.
The organisation founded to coordinate the global response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been plunged into a crisis unprecedented in its 24-year history.
Seeking to ease concerns after UNAIDS was accused of mishandling sexual assault allegations against a former deputy chief, Sidibe initiated the Independent Expert Panel report to study the agency’s culture and propose reforms.
But the findings released last week were a stunning rebuke of the Malian national’s nine-year tenure.
It said UNAIDS was “broken” due to “defective leadership” and accused Sidibe of overseeing a work environment that tolerated sexual harassment and abuse where a “cult of personality” surrounding the executive director saw benefits doled out as favours by Sidibe and his cadre of top allies.
Rome authorities are recommending residents close their windows and stay indoors following a massive fire at a waste treatment plant that covered much of the Eternal City in thick smoke.
Schools sent out messages advising parents they were keeping children indoors Tuesday and the mayor’s office urged Romans to avoid eating food cultivated around the plant, suggesting fears of toxic residue settling around the north part of Rome.
A huge plume of black smoke snaked up from the plant hours after the fire erupted overnight, and even residents in the southern reaches of the city woke up to choking air. The cause was under investigation. Rome’s garbage collection and disposal problems are notorious, with daily accounts on social media of overflowing bins even in prime tourist and residential neighborhoods.