Three Brussels deputies of various political hues (the PS, the Greens and the Open Vld) have tabled a joint motion for a resolution arguing for the revision of the European budgetary straitjacket. The straitjacket is considered too limited to make investment possible. This was reported in Le Soir yesterday (Monday).
The draft resolution brought before the parliament by Charles Picqué (PS, the President of the assembly), Isabelle Durant (the French-speaking Ecolo Green party, part of the opposition) and Stefaan Cornelis (the Open Vld, within the coalition) are arguing in favour of “ensuring that local authorities are able to spread investment expenses, with a strategic and economic capital gain, over several years.”
“We need to understand that the regions, the communities and local authorities actually realise a very large percentage of Belgium's public investment,” Mr Picqué explains. He says, “If we do not invest now, we will have to inject far more money in ten years.” Isabelle Durant stresses that the objective is in particular to join forces “to try to open the doors, indeed to lobby.” She mentions, “We might possibly launch a campaign against other the parliaments, or other European regions.”
The proposal is in fact co-signed by eight parties: from the majority, the PS, the CDH (Humanist Democratic Centre), Défi (Liberal-Social/Liberal), the SP.A (Alternative Socialists), the Open Vld, the CD&V (Flemish Christian Democrats), and within the opposition, Ecolo (the Francophone Green party) and Groen (the Flemish Green party). The federal bodies, such as the federal parliament have also separately expressed a wish for relaxing the European accounting rules.
The Brussels Times
