Is the EU about to reject France's 2015 Budget?

Many of us are familiar with our budgets for the next financial year being rejected and told to resubmit, however, the EU is believed to be about to reject the French 2015 budget due to non-compliance with new EU deficit rules.

Michel Sapin, the French Finance Minister, has recently announced that planned cost cuts would amount to just 0.2% compared to the 0.8% which had previously been agreed with the EU.

He also announced that France is likely to run a budget deficit of 4.3 against GDP in 2015, compared to the original expected deficit of just 3%.

The news is likely to lead to a clash with officials in Brussels as Sapin is determined not to back down, and will put immense pressure on Brussels to reject the budget, following the tightening of budget rules.

With budgets due to be submitted next week on the 15^th October, a decision about whether to impose sanctions will be made by the end of the month. And while in previous instances, failure to meet budget cut targets have largely been ignored, the fact that France is planning not to meet them is causing the biggest problem.

With pressure coming from Europe for France to make changes to working practices, and with France only willing to open up competition on some of its transport sectors, it seems that a clash is inevitable.

The outcome, however, is far from certain, but all parties appear to be willing to follow the new rules which were agreed upon by each party, even if it means sanctions being imposed.