Belgium’s French-speaking public broadcaster RTBF will have to make further savings under its next management contract and upcoming budget rounds, French-speaking Media Minister Jacqueline Galant said on Tuesday.
Speaking during a parliamentary committee debate on the 2026 budget adjustment, Galant said “new savings” would have to be considered, as is being asked of other public bodies. She did not give any estimate of the scale of the cuts.
When the new MR-Les Engagés majority took office in the Francophone Community government (FWB), it decided to freeze RTBF’s annual public funding at its 2024 level for the entire parliamentary term, setting the broadcaster on a savings path worth more than €130 million.
Galant also said on Tuesday that a protocol agreement had recently been signed with RTBF trade unions to reduce staffing by 169 full-time equivalent posts by 2028.
She said this would not involve compulsory redundancies, but would instead be achieved through the non-replacement of staff taking retirement, including early retirement.
In 2025, RTBF had total revenue of €480 million, with the bulk of it, 72%, coming from its regular public grant funded by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB), another name for Francophone Community government.
Asked by several MPs, the minister repeated her intention to refocus RTBF on its core missions as part of the next management contract, which will be negotiated with the broadcaster’s future chief executive.
That appointment is expected by the end of the summer.
