Alexia Bertrand (Open VLD): “If the federal government remains in current affairs for months, we will hit a budget wall”

So much the better ? The Open VLD will then go into opposition and are you happy about that?

Opposition does not equal drama. Vooruit was in opposition in Flanders, the Engagés also on the French-speaking side. And they came back in force. The Open VLD needs time to rebuild. Since June, the ball has not been in our court. Given the budgetary situation, we were even dismayed to see that the “Arizona” discussions were not moving forward after five months of discussions.

An “Arizona” majority at the federal level would not do the PS’s business

A center-right government without the socialists and with the Open VLD on board (the “Lagon” coalition, therefore) would have allowed you to implement your program.

This is true, but this coalition would demand that we quickly appear at the negotiating table to discuss reforms in pensions, the labor market, etc. It won’t. It is surprising to see that in the United States, there is talk of drastically reducing public spending, which represents 26% of GDP, even though it is already much lower than in Belgium. Having lived in the USA, I know that we do not have the same public services or the same social security. But Belgium is, in Europe, among the countries which have the highest proportion of public spending – 54% of GDP, that’s gigantic! – with Finland, France and Italy doing less well than us. We will have to reduce public spending. I hope the future government will do it. But I hear that there is talk of increasing taxes, on the contrary. This is an easy solution and not the right one.

But is it possible to balance the budget without raising new taxes? We will have to find 25 billion euros from the legislature…

And even 27.5 billion, according to the latest figures. Some negotiators estimate that it is only 16 billion euros. They are counting on the “feedback effects” of future policies. We will need to have a technical dialogue with the European Commission on this subject. If it’s 16 billion instead of 27.5, then balancing the books will be a piece of cake. As long as reforms are carried out – which will not be difficult without the PS, Ecolo and Groen in the future coalition – it is really feasible. In Vivaldi, what was complicated was governing with the PS which wanted to do absolutely nothing in terms of pensions. I am much more social than the socialists, because I know that if we do not restore order in social security and especially in pensions, there will no longer be social security. We are going straight into the wall: on the big Social Security posts, by 2029, pensions will increase by almost 15 billion euros mechanically, 8 billion in health care, 3 billion in sickness-disability… If the federal government remains in current affairs for months, we are going to hit a budget wall.

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If a new federal team is not quickly put in place, we will spend the year 2025 in a system of “provisional twelfths”. A regime which is based on the simple renewal of the 2024 budget, due to lack of political agreement. We will lose a year of reform.

Moving into provisional twelfths would be dramatic because it means that we have no 2025 budget. Belgium will be like a boat drifting in the wind. Every month that is lost is a tragedy. Especially in tax matters where certain rules can only apply for the following year, because we have to work over a full tax year.

Eva De Bleeker supported on social networks Trump’s radical remarks in terms of reducing public spending, she would like to apply the same recipes in Belgium. But is it possible?

I’ll never be a fan of the character or his style, but not all Donald Trump ideas are bad. Fortunately. What is interesting in his proposal is that he wants to think with personalities who have experience in the private sector in order to make things happen within the State. I don’t know what this will mean in the USA, but Eva De Bleeker is right to call for more efficiency in Belgium, given our level of public spending.

Trump instructs Musk to slash the administration: “Good idea. Our state apparatus also needs to be slimmed down”, exclaims Eva De Bleeker