Belgium's Budget Talks Enter Final Stretch: €10 Billion Needed by 2029, VAT Rise Ruled Out
Belgium's federal budget negotiations entered their final stretch on November 1. According to the Belga news agency, Prime Minister Bart De Wever dropped a planned "kern" meeting of core ministers on the evening of October 31 and switched to bilateral talks, meeting ministers Van Peteghem and Prévot, with further talks with Vandenbroucke possible. Negotiations continue on Sunday, with a new core meeting hoped for after the weekend.
The central problem is money: by 2029 the federal government must find roughly €10 billion in savings or revenue. The background figures are a 2025 budget deficit of 5.2 percent of GDP (about €33.2 billion) and public debt of around 108 percent of GDP.
Options already ruled out include raising the standard VAT rate from 21 to 22 percent, an idea vetoed by Georges-Louis Bouchez of the francophone liberal MR, a coalition partner. Another sticking point is the duration of the burnout benefit, which the Flemish socialist party Vooruit treats as a red line.
If the parties still cannot agree in this window, the 2027 budget will run on the emergency "provisional twelfths" mechanism, releasing one twelfth of the previous year's budget each month. The night of November 2–3 is widely seen as the decisive window.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：布鲁塞尔大广场。摄影 acediscovery，CC BY，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Grand Place in Brussels. Photo by acediscovery, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons.
