Belgium’s associations of cities and municipalities have written to Interior Minister Bernard Quintin demanding federal compensation for any new measures aimed at supporting the purchasing power of local police forces.
The second phase of the 2022 sectoral agreement for integrated police provides for increased meal vouchers and tax exemptions for overtime.
However, in their letter, UVCW (Wallonia), Brulocalis (Brussels) and VVSG (Flanders) state that local governments lack the budgetary capacity to independently finance such measures.
They insist that if the federal government implements these policies, it should fully and systematically compensate for all resulting costs, both direct and indirect.
The associations also raise concerns about the police budget, highlighting that only one indexation has been accounted for, even though the indexation threshold has been exceeded for a second time.
They point to unresolved issues from the 2018 sectoral agreement, including the fact that a €40.5 million cost increase was only partially compensated with €4.5 million.
They are also calling for police and firefighter statutes to be decoupled from the federal civil service, arguing that federal wage increases should not be automatically imposed on municipalities without considering their financial capacity.
