A week after the Flemish government completed the task, Belgium’s five federal government parties have started talks on next year’s budget. The task is no mean feat: government ministers need to find 16.6 billion euros or so. The exact figure depends on who exactly you ask.
First, a decision will have to be made on how much money will need to be saved, then on where the money needed will come from.
On the table are several options: cutting back on the number of corporations that facilitate tax breaks, activating the long-term sick and increasing patients’ contributions at the doctor’s.
‘The leader of the Francophone liberals, Mr Bouchez, does not want any new taxes, but Maxime Prévot of the Francophone centrists of Les Engagés is eager to look at new sources of income,’ explains VRT’s political editor Ivan De Vadder. ‘So, it will be a difficult, ideological task.’ The deadline is 14 October, because that is when Prime Minister De Wever, a Flemish nationalist, has to defend the budget in the federal parliament, although that deadline has already been missed a few times in the past. In any case, we do not expect any big news from the budget talks today’.