A new forecast by the Budget Monitoring Committee that was published on Monday makes for worrying reading for the politicians that are trying to keep the federal budget on track. The new forecast predicts that the federal budget deficit will rise to more than 39 billion euro in 2029 if current policies remain unchanged. The figure of 39 billion euro is 1.7 billion euro more than in the Monitoring Committees’ previous forecast that was published in July.
Next month the Federal Prime Minister Bart De Wever (Flemish nationalist) will deliver his government’s policy statement and budget. Mr De Wever speech on 14 October is expected to include a host of measures designed to curb the growth in the federal budget deficit.
The latest Monitoring Committee report shows such measures are much needed. The report will form a starting point for discussions on the 2026 budget between the 5 federal coalition parties.
According to the new figures, if policies were to remain unchanged, the federal budget deficit will rise to 39.1 billion euros in 2029. This is 5.5% of GDP. In its previous forecast published in July, the Monitoring Committee put the budget deficit 1.7 billion euro lower.
Although the forecast for 2029 is higher than previous forecasts, the budget deficit forecast for 2026 is slightly lower at 26.2 billion euro.