Budget

The Foreign Ministry’s budget for 2007 increases by 3.8% and amounts to 4.5 billion euros. These additional resources will enable us to finance the priorities which Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy has set for French foreign policy.

1 - France has to take its place in world affairs and help bring about better regulation of globalization.

  Credits for contributions to international organizations increase by 60 million euros (of which 50 million go for peacekeeping operations).

  The amount allocated for official development assistance is up. The target of 0.50% of gross national product for official development assistance will be reached in 2007, making France the leading donor in terms of volume in the European Union. Credits for the program, “Solidarity with Developing Countries,” are increased by 71 million, for a total of 1.81 billion euros. This increase is concentrated on French contributions to multilateral bodies, specifically the European Development Fund (692 million euros) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS (300 million euros).

  The UNITAID program (contributions on airline tickets allocated to an international drug purchase facility) will raise an additional 200 million euros.

  Funding for the French Development Agency also goes up, with 200 million euros being slated for official development assistance.

2 - The Foreign Ministry is helping to control migratory flows.

  An increase of 16 million euros is included in the 2007 budget to aid the introduction of biometric visas in an initial group of consular posts (equipment and staff training). (...)

  The French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA), whose funding was significantly increased between 2002 and 2006 in the context of an emergency plan, will receive 45.56 million euros in 2007. As a result of the increase in funding and personnel, the timeframe for processing asylum applications has been reduced to close to the goal of two months.

3 - The network of French lycées overseas is confirmed as a key player in the promotion of French culture.

  The subsidy to the agency for French teaching abroad (AEFE) goes up by 8 million euros (325.5 million). A modernization audit has also defined the conditions for implementing the Agency’s new remit to build and renovate school buildings abroad.

  Credits for university scientific and cultural cooperation are to be redeployed as part a vigorous plan to highlight the French language and increase France’s attractiveness. The mechanism has been simplified to focus on a few operators, CulturesFrance and Edufrance, Egide and the CEF (centers for study in France), which will shortly be regrouped into a single structure, Campus France, so that the possibilities at universities, in the cultural and scientific areas, are much clearer and attract promising foreign students.

4 - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is continuing to modernize.

  The 2007 budget is in line with the modernization contract signed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry for the Budget in April 2006. Several structural reforms are going forward. Two examples will serve to illustrate how it is modernizing:

  Making embassies “the natural link in the public service abroad” as requested by the interministerial council on state resources spent abroad, which held a meeting on July 25, 2006 chaired by the prime minister. The 2007 budget for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reflects this objective: services are to be grouped together on diplomatic campuses; unified administrative and financial services are to be set up for all services currently operating abroad (involving 58 countries in 2007); more general use is to be made of contracts involving specific objectives and resources with the State’s operators abroad.

  Costs are to be reduced in the management of State properties in other countries. In 2004 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rented or owned 337 buildings (as against 335 in 2005). A target of 329 sites was adopted for 2007. The Ministry is also embarking in 2007 on an ambitious program to sell off property that has become less useful or too costly (30 million euros).

Lastly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is doing its bit to trim the State’s employment rolls with the net elimination of 141 positions.