The European Commission gives Belgium 4 years to reduce its deficit

As for Belgium, it still does not have a full-fledged government to engage in savings and reforms, while maintaining investments, as demanded by the EU. This fall, the government in current affairs, requested by the trainer Bart De Wever (N-VA), obtained from the Commission a deadline until the end of the year to submit its 2025 budget and the multiannual plan for a return to a healthy trajectory.

“We prefer to have plans which benefit from solid political support, rather than plans which would no longer be relevant once the new government is in place”, we confirmed to the Commission. “But we cannot postpone the question of the excessive deficit procedure for too long”, which is why the Commission formulated its recommendation on Tuesday. This relates to the basic period of four years. The period could be extended to seven years if our country commits to additional reforms and investments in relation to the recovery and resilience plan.

Federal trainer Bart De Wever (N-VA) has already suggested that he would require seven years to eliminate the deficit. France, Italy, Spain, Finland and Romania have already requested this extension, and obtained it this Tuesday, after submitting their budget documents.