PRESS RELEASE
21 October 2021
MAJOR STRUCTURAL ISSUES
PUBLICATION OF FOUR PAPERS: AGROECOLOGY,
UNIVERSITIES, JUSTICE, PENSIONS
The Court has published four papers, which form part of a body of work carried out on several
major public policies, identifying both the main challenges that public decision-makers will face in
the com
ing years, and the tools that may be used to tackle them. As an extension of the report “
A
public finance strategy to exit the crisis
”, handed to the President of the Republic and the Prime
Minister last June, this series of publications allows the Court to express itself on structural issues.
With these educational publications, the Court is putting itself at the heart of its mission to inform
citizens, at a key democratic moment. The first four papers published today summarise work
already contradicted with the relevant authorities and organisations. They are launching a series
of publications which will run until December, and which will relate in particular to police
effectiveness, energy production choices, housing policy, the integration of young people into
employment, school education and health
–
a dozen topics in total, identifying issues that it will be
essential to tackle in the next five or ten years.
Supporting the agroecological transition to better respond to environmental challenges
National and European environmental commitments call into question the agricultural model that
has prevailed in our country since the 1960s. The European Union’s common agricultural policy (CAP)
has, since 2015, taken environmental issues more into account, but without obtaining the expected
results. The current share of agricultural land dedicated to organic farming is 9.5%, with a target of
15% in 2022. The new CAP, the principles of which were defined in 2021, should be an opportunity
to support an increased environmental ambition between 2023 and 2027, while mobilising other
levers such as better enforcement of regulations, access to agricultural land, risk management and
the search for additional sources of income for farmers.
Read the paper
Universities in 2030: more freedoms, more responsibilities
Of 2.7 million students, 1.6 million are enrolled in university, a 10% increase over five years. The
reforms of the past fifteen years have only partially responded to the challenges facing universities:
the constant increase in student demographics and the improvement of conditions for supporting
student life, the acquisition of real management autonomy, or the opportunity to meet financial
challenges, with regard to both public funding and own resources. The Court has identified three
courses of action for the next ten years: increasing the autonomy of institutions, conceiving the
university as a real place for success and living, and accepting and mastering the differences between
universities, by opening up the prospect of creating university colleges.
Read the paper
Improving management of the public justice service
For several years, the judiciary has benefited from developments intended to improve the response
provided to citizens. Its budget increased by 22% between 2011 and 2021. Yet the processing times
for civil cases are deteriorating, the stock of pending cases is increasing and the changes brought
about by the justice programming law for 2018-2022 are struggling to be implemented. Three reforms
are needed in the short term to address these structural weaknesses: the map of appeal courts must
be changed and their number reduced; the justice system must equip itself with workload assessment
tools and improve the distribution of staff; and finally, the Ministry of Justice must make up for the
considerable delay accumulated in digital transformation.
Read the paper
Continuing to adapt the pension system to reduce deficits and strengthen equity
The financial balance of the pay-as-you-go pension system, according to which the youngest working
generations finance, in particular through their contributions, the pensions of the oldest generations,
is weakened by the ageing of the population. Reducing deficits (€13
billion in 2020) requires
controlling pension spending, which is part of the broader context of controlling social spending and
the sustainable return of social security to financial equilibrium. To achieve this, there are many
parameters (age of pension entitlement, early retirement arrangements, conditions for full pension,
pension indexing, etc.) but, ultimately, controlling retirement expenditure requires pushing back
retirement ages or reducing the relative level of pensions. The measures should take into account
considerations of equity between generations and within each generation, while aiming to simplify
the rules and harmonize them between the schemes.
Read the paper
PRESS CONTACTS:
Emmanuel Kessler
Communication Director
Tel.
+33 (0)1 42 98 55 62
emmanuel.kessler@ccomptes.fr
Julie Poissier
Head of press relations
Tel.
+33 (0)1 42 98 97 43
julie.poissier@ccomptes.f
@Courdescomptes
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