Despite disastrous public finances, there is no budget control – and not even a debate about it.
Normally a budget audit is held around this time: the federal government checks whether it is on track with the implementation of the budget, whether sufficient money is coming in and whether more money is not being spent than estimated. This is usually accompanied by negotiations between the government parties about which adjustments are necessary and always creates front-page news.
That is not the case now. The De Croo government decided not to hold a budget audit ‘because there is insufficient time to take new legislative initiatives’ now that elections are scheduled for June 9. Not that things are going well with government finances, on the contrary. In preparation for such a budget audit, a group of top officials always prepares a report on the country’s financial situation. The so-called Monitoring Committee has now also done so and the report once again illustrates that the De Croo government is leaving the country in blood red.
All governments together will have a deficit of 26.6 billion euros this year, or 4.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). If policy remains unchanged, the Monitoring Committee sees that deficit increasing by almost 2 percent of GDP to around 45 billion euros over the next five years. The largest deficit is in the federal government and the causes are known: increasing aging costs, rising interest costs and additional defense expenditure. The debt ratio would rise from 106 percent of GDP now to 119.2 percent of GDP in 2029. This makes us one of the worst performing countries in Europe.
But we’re not going to do anything about that anymore. Not even during the government negotiations with a current De Croo government. And let’s not forget what happened in 2020. During a caretaker government, government is normally governed with ‘provisional twelfths’: one twelfth of last year’s budget may be spent each month. But four years ago the money tap was opened wide: the PVDA, Socialists, Greens and Vlaams Belang managed to spend extra money, without any income or savings in return.
So we have to wait for a new government to put our public finances in order. Yet the parties should be allowed to say today where they expect to get the money after June 9. It may be somewhat understandable that there is now no budget control, but the fact that there is no debate on how our public finances can become healthy again is not only incomprehensible but also irresponsible.
