FranceFrance's finance minister cut the country's deficit forecast for 2015 on Wednesday adding that Paris will be well within the EU's 3 percent limit by 2017, reports the EUobserver. Michel Sapin told a press conference that he had revised France's expected deficit down to 4.1 percent from the 4.3 percent previously forecast, as a consequence of extra savings worth €3.6 billion announced by Sapin in October.
The extra money does not come from additional spending cuts but instead from lower interest expenses from servicing France's debts, a reduction in its contributions to the EU budget, and extra tax revenues from a clampdown on tax evasion and a new tax on second homes.
"We have revised the 2015 deficit ... without touching the fundamentals of French economic policy," Sapin told reporters.
The announcement is the latest piece of brinkmanship between Paris and Brussels over France's budget deficit.
