The Federal Government's multi-year budget deal will lower its deficit by €8.1 billion by 2029, according to Budget Minister Vincent Van Peteghem (CD&V).
The Flemish Christian democrat minister made the claim while presenting the draft budget for 2026 on Tuesday.
Since negotiations on the multi-year budget dragged on, the Federal Government had to rely on provisional twelfths for the first months of the year, a temporary mechanism for limited spending when a budget is not yet agreed.
On Tuesday, discussions on the 2026 budget began again, with the budget and finance ministers issuing introductory statements.
According to Van Peteghem, the Federal Government's measures will reduce the budget deficit by €2.7 billion in 2026 and reach €8.1 billion by 2029. The numbers do not include the major savings and restructuring steps laid out in the coalition agreement.
When the budget deal was unveiled last year, the total was put at €9.2 billion. Federal Government sources say the revision is due to a technical correction related to ammunition purchases and an offsetting adjustment for measures in the Defence Plan, while stressing that the promised effort will still be delivered.
Despite the announced budget measures, the deficit is expected to rise to 4.3% of GDP by 2029, the final year of the legislative term. This year's debt ratio stands at 85.6% of GDP. The current account deficit for "Entity 1", which covers the Federal Government and social security, is estimated at €24.637 billion, or 3.7% of GDP, for 2026.
The European Union, however, assess Belgium's overall budget deficit across all levels of government, which is projected to reach 4.9% of GDP in 2026, with a debt ratio of 110.1%.
Van Peteghem said the Federal Government is on track to respect the expenditure trajectory monitored by the European Commission.
The government expects that over the period from 2025 to 2029, cumulative primary spending will be 300 million euros lower than what Belgium committed to last year.
"The government must set the bar as high as possible and make adjustments where necessary, but above all, it must implement the reforms as quickly as possible," Van Peteghem said. "Despite the difficult circumstances, I remain confident."
