After a night of negotiations, the five parties in the Arizona coalition did not have a meeting scheduled today. But apparently, the discussions are progressing well, with one priority: finding 18 billion euros to meet the budgetary criteria imposed by Europe. But why this amount?
With the presentation of the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, this is a great opportunity to comment on the near sleepless night experienced a few hours earlier by the negotiators of the future Arizona coalition.
“A sleepless night also created bonds, let’s put it that way… No, but it’s important when a team is set up“, declared Georges-Louis Bouchez.
Beyond that, it was mainly a question last night of the budgetary trajectory for the next five years. Belgium’s concern can be summed up as follows: a deficit that is too large, and which will worsen in the years to come if there is no reaction.
According to Arizona, 18 billion euros must be found in five years to meet the 3% deficit desired by Europe, or even 23.5 billion euros by integrating the new policies.
“Belgium, today, has the worst report card in the European Union. If you add up the sanitation and new policies, such as for example lower taxes on those who work, but also initiatives in defense or security, we are at a fiscal year of just over 23 billion euros. This is an unprecedented effort in the history of our country, but it is essential if we want to preserve well-being and economic activity in Belgium.“, commented the president of the MR.
Unfortunately, some economists are more pessimistic than the figures put forward by the future government. Geert Noels highlights a graph published by the European Central Bank, which suggests a deficit of more than 7% for Belgium. In this scenario, we would need to find at least 40 billion euros.
“The deficit will grow due to certain dynamic elements which have the effect of weighing even more on the budget. We talked about the snowball effect, the fact that rates are rising and debt is also increasing. There is the demographic effect with aging. There is the climate effect, with the climate efforts that must be made. And then there is the defense (…),” he explains.
All this also explains the importance of quickly forming a government to more quickly reverse the evolution of the deficit, but also to avoid sanctions from Europe and those from the financial markets, which could increase interest rates. Belgium would then have more difficulty borrowing money.
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