The housing of Monegasque citizens and the new Fontvielle shopping centre are behind the National Council’s first rejection of the 2024 Amending Budget, but the government says it will not stop them from “continuing their action”. 

During a public session on Friday 21st June, the National Council rejected the first draft of the 2024 Amending Budget, with elected officials, led by Thomas Brezzo, carrying out the familiar threat of not voting on a budget at all this year. 

“This budget comes at a time when we have been in a renewed dialogue with the government for a few months. We were rather confident but the private meetings of 11th and 13th June were catastrophic,” said Thomas Brezzo in a press conference the following day, according to Monaco Matin. 

Elected officials say they were waiting for concrete proposals regarding the National Housing Plan for Monegasque citizens and the development of the new Fontvieille shopping centre. 

Bezzo said that the government’s budget announcements did not live up to the “promises that had been made”, and that “elected officials found themselves in a situation where they had no choice but to vote against this budget.”

“We need a new National Housing Plan”

Thomas Bezzo has reportedly called for a “complete overhaul” of the National Housing Plan, an issue that is a “perpetual subject of conflict between the government and the National Council.”

In response, the government said in a statement Saturday that the government’s National Housing Plan has delivered 633 apartments for Monegasque nationals within six years. In addition, 25 apartments at Villa La Luciole will be delivered in 2027-28, in what it described as a “concrete gesture”. 

“Despite the conviction and mobilisation of the government and the administration services concerned, we must not ignore the complex land, urban planning and legal issues of Monaco, a small country by size, with very little land space available,” said Minister of State Pierre Dartout. “To plan a real estate operation, you need land: the government is not sparing its efforts, but there may be periods of negotiations and transactions.”

The Fontvielle “fiasco”

In describing the proposed Fontvielle shopping centre development as a “fiasco”, elected official Franck Julien claimed that €36 million had been spent in study fees alone.

Dartout responded that it was “appropriate” for the government to better assess with “precaution and precision” the parameters of this major project, particularly cost, deadlines and the impact on the neighbourhood. 

“No one will be left out: not the residents of the Terraces de Fontvieille who will be accompanied individually in their rehousing, nor the traders who participate in the running of the commercial centre and who were involved at each stage of the project.”

The next discussions on the second draft of the 2024 Amending Budget will take place in October, after Didier Guillaume will have assumed the role of Minister of State on 9th September. 

See also:

Fontvieille shopping centre project to be “revised”, National Council “stunned”

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Photo: Minister of State Pierre Dartout and National Council President Thomas Bezzo, source: National Council of Monaco