Bordeaux Métropole signs a blank check for the Bordeaux-Toulouse-Dax high-speed lines
Despite the opposition of environmentalists, Philippe Poutou and six elected officials from the right, the council of Bordeaux Métropole adopted this Thursday the deliberation confirming the financing of the community for the great railway project of the South West (GPSO), that is to say 354 million d ‘euros arrowed towards the railway facilities to the south of Bordeaux. But it also endorses a financing plan “of a shameful approximation”, according to Pierre Hurmic, which may eventually result in a greater financial participation than envisaged.
How much will Bordeaux Métropole put in the pot for GPSO? 354 million euros earmarked for railway developments south of Bordeaux, as indicated in the deliberation this Thursday (by 62 votes in favor, including those of the Socialists and the Métropole Commune group (s) and 38 against)? 605.6 million, ie the share of the metropolis indicated by the financing plan annexed to this text, after deduction of the product of taxes dedicated to the construction of high-speed lines? Even more?
It must be argued that neither the deliberation nor the council have lifted the vagueness on the exact contribution of the community to the high-speed lines Bordeaux-Toulouse and Bordeaux-Dax. For Pierre Hurmic, this financing plan, presented only the day before the vote to metropolitan elected officials, is even “a shameful approximation”.
Sloppy plan
And the mayor of Bordeaux to enumerate the “errors” and “weaknesses” according to him this “totally botched plan” that the State imposes “in the haste” to the president of Bordeaux Métropole, Alain Anziani. “We are asked to vote on a financing plan that is false,” said its first vice-president.
The text indicates, for example, that the State is committed to 40% of the 14 billion GPSO, while these 40%, or 4 billion promised by Jean Castex, only concern the first phase (LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse); that Europe financed 20% of the project, when this aid is a mere hypothesis; or that the financial receipts of the new taxes are calculated with the pifometer:
“We do not have the slightest element on what will be the base (Editor’s note: amount used as the basis for the calculation of a tax) of this tax on offices and the special tax on equipment (TSE), Pierre recalls Hurmic. We are told that this TSE, voted in haste on November 10, will bring in 24 million per year, taken from households and businesses at a time when local authorities are making efforts to control tax pressure. As for the tax on office premises, it will be defined in a future text. But we are still told that these taxes will bring us 259 million euros. ”
The Communist group also protested against this TSE, without voting against this text confirming the participation of Bordeaux Métropole in the local public establishment. This will soon be created in order to finance the GPSO project, notably via the lifting of these two taxes, and to carry out the work. It is this entry of the metropolis into the EPL which has the opposition of the 31 elected ecologists, favorable to the AFSB, but not to the LGV.
Refining
The mayor of Bordeaux is also worried about a “fool’s market”: that the current decision, which relates to the first phase (LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse, railway developments south of Bordeaux and north of Toulouse) does not impose it is up to the metropolis to compensate for financing future phases, ie the Bordeaux-Dax LGV.
“It is agreed that the communities having participated in the financing of the first stage act on the principle of solidarity of all these communities for the financing of the two stages, and undertake to finance the second phase when its realization will take place” , states the document.
Could Bordeaux Métropole therefore be requested beyond its commitment for 354 million euros? The distribution table specifies that for the first stage, its share will be 21% of the total of local authorities, or 865.2 million euros (less 30% of taxation, or 605.6 million) and 0 % for the second step.
But these proportions have to move: they curiously integrate communities that were voted against participation in the LGV (department of Lot-et-Garonne), or did they require (Pyrenees-Atlantique) or are not yet pronounced (agglomerations of Mont-de-Marsan, Agen, Pau and the Basque Country).
“It is true that I would have preferred to vote for a more refined financing plan,” said Véronique Ferreira, vice-president of finance at Bordeaux Métropole. But we are at the very beginning and we will only be able to participate in the refining if we are inside the EPL. If we are outside we will not be able to deal with governance. ”
Dark clarity
“The commitment is clear”, pleads Alain Anziani, responding to criticism of Pierre Hurmic on the lack of clarity between the various sums advanced:
“We give a figure, 354 million euros, and we refer to a financing plan with perhaps additional expenses, but also additional revenue from tolls”, which could represent 1 to 1.7 billion revenue for Bordeaux – Toulouse.
But on the right also heavyweights of the metropolis have protested against the method and the very interest of GPSO. “A useless, expensive, wobbly and unfinished project”, according to the mayor of Pessac Franck Raynal. “Budgetary and economic nonsense,” says Senator Nathalie Delattre, who tried to have the new taxes rejected at the Palais Bourbon, without success.
“There are still four years, we are told of a ceiling of 10 billion euros, we are now at 14 billion while we already know that the envelope of expropriations and environmental studies are underestimated. We will therefore have many review clauses, ”predicts the elected radical Bordeaux.
But high speed when you love, you don’t count.