Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and the top ministers have been meeting since the afternoon about the preparation of the 2022 budget and they will continue for a while on Saturday evening. The topics on the agenda included labor market policy, long-term illness and investments.
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The seven ruling parties are not putting any pressure on themselves to reach an agreement before the end of this weekend. ‘The deadline is Tuesday at 2.30 pm’, said Minister of Finance Vincent Van Peteghem (CD&V) on his arrival in Wetstraat 16. On that date, Prime Minister De Croo will hold his policy statement in the House.
The seven parties intend to tackle all files systematically. ‘All aspects are interrelated and must be discussed together,’ said State Secretary for Budget Eva De Bleeker (Open VLD). According to the liberal politician, the talks are proceeding in a ‘constructive’ way. ‘We are working on the budget process, the recovery plan, the reform of the labor market and the vacancies within companies. Everything is connected.’
The coalition agreement provides for an increase in the employment rate to 80 percent. The employment rate is currently only 70 percent, so there is still work to be done. Prime Minister De Croo put a memorandum with 35 proposals on the table. This would include a four-day week, in which the working hours that are normally performed in five days would be spread over four.
With regard to energy, the ministers are examining, among other things, what can be done to make rising energy costs more bearable for the population. There are several avenues on the table for this.
2 billion
Prime Minister De Croo is aiming for an effort of 2 billion euros. At the start of the government, it was agreed to make a fixed budgetary effort of 0.2 percent of GDP every year post-corona. That corresponds to about a billion euros. Most of the measures to find that first billion were already agreed during the government negotiations. For example, additional income from fraud prevention is expected and additional VAT and excise duties will be imposed on tobacco.
On top of that, the prime minister wants a variable effort of another billion euros. There is already a whole series of measures on the table for this. The easiest of these is the already decided securities tax, good for 430 million euros. In addition, consideration is being given, among other things, to a reform of the favorable regime for top athletes – which is very sensitive to the MR – and a reduction in the reimbursement of excise duties on professional diesel.
The talks are expected to continue for a while on Saturday evening and to continue on Sunday and also at the beginning of next week.
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