Wallonia leans towards communism, said Pierre Wunsch, governor of the National Bank. Especially the weak are the victims of this.
These were again hallucinatory figures that labor economist Stijn Baert (UGent) sent to the world over the weekend. Hardly anywhere in Europe is the employment rate among migrants from outside the European Union as low as in Belgium. Of the 20 to 64-year-olds with a non-EU nationality in our country, 43 percent are at work. In the EU, that is 60 percent – or nearly half more. What is the reason for this?
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These were again hallucinatory figures that labor economist Stijn Baert (UGent) sent to the world over the weekend. Hardly anywhere in Europe is the employment rate among migrants from outside the European Union as low as in Belgium. Of the 20 to 64-year-olds with a non-EU nationality in our country, 43 percent are at work. In the EU, that is 60 percent – or nearly half more. What is the reason for this? Baert himself indicates a few causes. It certainly has to do with discrimination. For example, a Turk appears to be up to 46 percent less likely to be invited to a job interview than a Fleming. And the education rate of non-EU migrants in our country is also lower than elsewhere. About 44 percent of them do not have a secondary education diploma, compared to 20 percent of Belgians. Migrants themselves are also part of the responsibility, because nowhere in Europe are so few women from outside the EU available for the labor market as we are. Anyone who splits the Belgian figures according to the regions comes to an even more shocking conclusion. The employment rate of people with a non-EU nationality is 50 percent in Flanders. That is 10 percentage points lower than in the EU, so we are performing below par. In Brussels, which is struggling with problems that all major European cities are struggling with, but with its international institutions it also has a great attraction for highly skilled migrants, that is 42 percent. But then look at the Walloon Region: only 32 percent of non-EU citizens work there. So only one in three is working there. That is roughly half of the average in the EU and 20 percentage points less than in Flanders. How could that be? Would people discriminate more in Wallonia than in Flanders, even if the accusation often goes in the opposite direction? Are there more non-EU migrants with a low educational level? Do even fewer migrant women offer themselves for the labor market? There is a more important explanation. While globally 76 percent of 20 to 64-year-olds work in Flanders, this is 65 percent in Wallonia. The employment rate is clearly lower in the south of the country. And the gap between the two regions is widening. This has to do with the economic situation: if the economy picks up more, there will also be more demand on the labor market. The root cause is the policy pursued. This can not only ensure a better economic climate, but also a culture of ‘everyone has to come along’. The policy in the south of the country is mainly determined by the PS, which has almost always been in charge of the Walloon government. Despite future contracts, Marshall plans, 12 billion in European structural and investment funds and the 6.5 billion euros that flow from Flanders to Wallonia via federal taxes and social security every year, Wallonia is sinking ever deeper. The Governor of the National Bank, Pierre Wunsch, said in Knack a year ago: the gap between Flanders and Wallonia is widening, while it should narrow. Wunsch then also talked about the causes: “This undoubtedly has a large part to do with the policies pursued by the regions and communities, because they are responsible for matters such as infrastructure, activation of the unemployed, training and so on.” Last week, the governor stated in the magazine of the French-speaking university UCLouvain: ‘Today we have a problem of institutional tension and an economic structure in the south of the country that depends on transfers from Flanders. We are probably at 70 percent government spending in Wallonia for 2021-2022. That is to say that we are closer to a communist than to a neo-liberal regime, which some believe to see. ” The policy pursued in Wallonia is only possible thanks to European and Flemish money flows. Otherwise it would completely go under in the debt swamp. But the results of the policy are disastrous. Not only for most Walloons, but especially for the weak, such as the migrants, who the responsible Walloon politicians say they defend. And yet they want to go even further down that road. It cannot be the intention that Flanders be dragged into destruction.
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