Here is the ranking of the ministries, according to their current expenditure. (Photo: Christophe Lemaire/Maison Moderne)

Here is the ranking of the ministries, according to their current expenditure. (Photo: Christophe Lemaire/Maison Moderne)

Health insurance is a major expenditure item for the Ministry of Social Security. It remains the most expensive ministry in the government, according to the 2021-2025 multiannual budget. It is followed by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of the Family.

The Social Security Ministry’s expenditure is expected to reach €3.876bn in 2021, €4.179bn in 2022, €4.366bn in 2023, €4.480bn in 2024 and €4.745bn in 2025. The government has published its multi-annual budget for 2021-2025, which details current expenditure by ministry.

Here is the ranking for the year 2021:

The spending hierarchy is projected to change little in subsequent years. The Health budget would overtake the Justice budget in 2022. Similarly, the Energy and Spatial Planning budget will grow faster than the Gender Equality budget. Justice will regain its place ahead of Health the following year, and the Ministry of Labour's budget will overtake that of Finance. By 2024, the Ministry of the Civil Service will have a larger budget than Finance, and by 2025 it will even exceed Labour. The Ministry of Social Security remains the most expensive ministry each year. Most ministries see their budgets increase, with a few exceptions, such as Finance or Health, which experience some decreases.

The trends also remain stable, when compared to the budget announced in 2018 for 2019, before Covid-19 occurred. At that time, Social Security was already in first place with a forecast of €3.501bn, followed by Education (€2.456bn) and Family, Integration and Greater Region (€1.712bn).

Sickness insurance and staff remuneration

Their higher cost is explained by important specific expenditure items. For example, for social security, the State's contribution to the financing of health insurance amounts to €1.289bn for benefits in kind and €69m euros for cash benefits for 2021. €319m for long-term care insurance. €96m will also go to the Employers' Mutual Insurance Fund, and €1.976bn to pension insurance.

€1.236bn goes to the Fund for the Future of Children.

In national education, the salaries of supervisory staff account for a large part of the budget: €676m for salaries in basic education alone, €48m in the regional directorates of basic education and €713m for the remuneration of staff in secondary education. These are all items of expenditure that will increase in the coming years.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.