The Federal Government's core cabinet (the Prime Minister and his five deputy PMs) is meeting again on Friday to reach an agreement on the budget for the coming years. How the meeting will proceed is difficult to predict, as Thursday's meeting reportedly did not go smoothly.
In these talks, Prime Minister Bart De Wever (N-VA) wants to find at least €10 billion to get the federal budget back on track by the end of the legislative term.
"If we cannot make difficult decisions, we are not capable of governing," De Wever said in Parliament on Thursday when responding to the numerous questions about the state of affairs in the budget talks.
However, the talks are proving difficult. Some time ago, De Wever made an opening offer based on four key points to support the restructuring: a VAT increase, the index jump, the growth standard in healthcare, and long-term sick leave.
It quickly became clear that the index jump was met with resistance from almost all parties, but now it seems that the other points are also proving difficult to some extent.
High tensions
The leader of the Flemish Christian Democrats CD&V, Sammy Mahdi, said that the proposal lacks a "strongest shoulders" component. He suggested that the securities tax could be strengthened and reiterated the proposal by his Budget Minister, Vincent Van Peteghem (also CD&V), to address abuse involving management companies.
Yvan Verougstraete, the leader of the Francophone centrist Les Engagés, stated on Friday morning that "tensions are very high."
The previous deadline for the Prime Minister's policy statement last Tuesday was already missed. The aim was to postpone it by a week at most, but whether that new deadline will be reached remains to be seen.
Much will depend on how the talks proceed on Friday and possibly Saturday, although Flemish socialist Deputy PM Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit) is reportedly unable to attend on Sunday due to family commitments. He reportedly announced this earlier this week when it became clear that the State of the Union would be postponed.
