After the Assembly, the Senate will consider the pension bill in a week. The next step will be what is called a joint joint commission (CMP), a step that the oppositions are already denouncing. Jean-Rémi Baudot’s political brief
These are three letters that you will hear a lot in the coming weeks: “CMP” for joint parity commission. Mid-March, after the examination in the Senate of the text of the bill on pensions, fourteen parliamentarians will meet to draft the final version of this reform.
The CMP, a body unknown to the general public, is nevertheless very common for harmonizing the texts voted on in the Assembly and the Senate. It is a very commonplace process. Concerning the amending Social Security financing bill (PLFSSR), which raises the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, the text was not voted on in the Assembly. This means that the CMP will have a lot of freedom to rewrite a text that suits the Senate and the government.
Behind the scenes, the oppositions are already preparing their arguments. “A CMP is fourteen guys who agree behind closed doors” castigates a pillar of La France insoumise. “It’s going to be a huge democratic problem” anticipates a National Rally framework. The idea that comes up the most is that the CMP would be “a denial of democracy”.
The oppositions denounce this commission, but to suggest that this CMP would be a sleight of hand to impose pension reform is to forget that two thirds of the laws pass there and that in general, no one is moved by it.
A political trap set by opposition to the executive
If the Nupes and the RN furbish their weapons around the “denial of democracy”, you have to do a little math: fourteen parliamentarians, seven deputies, seven senators. Each chooses by their side, they represent the different political groups. Except that on paper, those who agree with this reform are already in the majority: three Renaissance deputies, a Modem, three right-wing senators and a centrist senator. That’s already eight out of fourteen. You possibly add a ninth vote with the LR deputies and the case is closed. The five voices of the left will not carry enough weight.
The pension reform will therefore be negotiated, ultimately, in this commission. There will remain a last vote in the Assembly and the Senate, but it is no longer possible to modify a text of law after a so-called “conclusive” CMP.
What is interesting is that the majority does not seem to measure the political trap set for it by the opposition by denouncing this CMP. I asked the question to a good dozen executives and ministers in Macronie, officially no fear. “These are our institutions” explains a Macronist deputy.
But how will public opinion react if the Nupes and the RN insist for days that this reform is negotiated behind closed doors between parliamentarians? The argument is populist, but it risks carrying. Articles 49.3 and 47.1 are also tools of our constitution, but the oppositions have succeeded in turning them against the executive. The CMP on pensions is likely to experience the same scenario.