“A windfall for the budget”, Flemish Minister of Budget Matthias Diependaele (N-VA) calls the receipts from registration duties over the past year. “But the budget is nevertheless blood red,” it sounded in “The morning” on Radio 1.
The corona crisis has had a major impact on the finances of the Flemish government. Because the Flemish budget went into the red last year and the debt ratio has deteriorated considerably, the rating agency Moody’s lowered the credit score of Flanders to the level of the federal government.
For 2021, the minister assumed a deficit of 4.2 billion euros. But the annual monitoring in December showed that this forecast can be adjusted to 2.8 billion euros. This is the result of 750 million euros more revenue and 570 million euros less expenditure.
The figures are not final yet: the expected negative impact on growth due to the fourth corona wave has not yet been included. This also applies to housing transactions and inheritances in the last weeks of December.
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