Fundamentals of Public Budget Principles

📋 Course Outline

1. Budgetary principles
2. Annuality and budget execution
3. Unity and universality
4. Exceptions to nonaffectation
5. Specialization of credits
6. Budget balance principle
7. Balance in public administrations
8. European budget rules
9. State resources and classifications

📖 1. Budgetary principles

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Budgetary principles: Budgetary principles are core rules that structure how the state’s finances are organized and how public money is authorized and used.
• Loi de finance: A financial law is the legal act that sets the state budget, including its revenues and expenditures.
• Magna Carta 1215: Magna Carta is the 1215 English charter that led to requiring authorization for raising taxes.

📝 Essential Points

• Budgetary principles arose from a parliamentary regime where rulers needed political authorization to handle public funds.
• In 1215, English lords used revolt to obtain the right for taxes to be voted, which strengthened the idea of financial laws.
• The principles in the parliamentary tradition also aimed to prevent abuses and diversion of public money by constraining government action.
• Louis XVIII brought these budgetary ideas back to France, and the main French version developed during the Restoration in the 19th century.

💡 Memory Hook

“Taxes + spending need consent”: budgetary principles tie authorization of revenue to authorization of expenditure.