The council of the City of Brussels approved the 2026 budget by a majority of PS-Vooruit-MR+-Engagés-CD&V, against the opposition late on Monday evening.
The balanced budget is "the result of hard work at a time when difficult choices have to be made," according to Mayor Philippe Close (PS) before the vote. The opposition focused its criticism mainly on the consequences of federal measures at the municipal level.
Between now and 2030, more than 400 to 600 municipal employees will not be replaced – representing a 10% to 15% reduction in the city's workforce, according to Bruno Bauwens (PVDA). Such a percentage is equivalent to a restructuring plan in the private sector, he said.
However, these figures are disputed by Mayor Philippe Close, because they also include jobs subsidised by other levels of government (including education), which are not involved here.
"On the one hand, we have a government that says, ‘We must defend workers. No new taxes here.’ But the weak federal subsidy, which is only increasing by 1% this year, is putting so much pressure on municipalities and sectors that hundreds of people are losing their jobs, and they have to raise taxes,” Bauwens said.
Unfair and unnatural
Like Bauwens, Benoît Hellings (Ecolo-Groen) regretted the cuts in the field of culture, such as the closure of the contemporary art centre Centrale.
"This majority has opted for the past and commercial culture (the BME, the Stock Exchange), while the city has abandoned the path of creativity and is thus moving away from the future," he noted.
According to Hellings, 3,500 former unemployed people have been excluded by the liberal MR (and centrist Les Engagés) at the federal level and will soon end up at the Public Social Welfare Centre (CPAS) in Brussels.
He said that the subsidy to the CPAS will increase by only 2%, while the subsidy to the police is increasing by 13%. However, this will not enable the police zone to recruit new police officers.
This second budget from the majority is "unfair, unnatural, against nature and against culture," Hellings said. "You are managing to drastically increase the tax burden – which the MR voters did not want – and at the same time to abolish a large part of the public services policy – which the PS voters absolutely did not want."
Mourad Maïmouni (Team Fouad Ahidar), who abstained from voting, called the budget "embellished." He regretted the significant increase in parking revenues and the impact he believes this will have on trade.
The city council also approved the budget of the Public Social Welfare Centre, proposed by its president David Weystman (MR) – with the aim of making the institution more of a lever for social emancipation than for assistance.
Resources will be focused more on autonomy, training, employment, and housing, and on empowering beneficiaries. The left-wing opposition (Ecolo-Groen and PVDA/PTB) did not so much dispute the proposed figures as the fundamental change of course of the CPAS and the measures resulting from it.
