The Office of Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, using a WhatsApp discussion, disputed claims that he approved the contentious 2023 budget submitted to MPs, which led to the resignation of Federal Budget Secretary Eva De Bleeker (Open VLD) due to various miscalculations.
On 18 November, De Bleeker resigned after her position had grown untenable after proposing differing budget figures to the Belgian parliament and to the European Union, with multiple mistakes in the figures.
While the former Budget Secretary seems to have borne the brunt of the mistake with her resignation, one of her former aides has accused the Prime Minister's cabinet of having granted "explicit approval" to the budget De Bleeker submitted in parliament.
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In response, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister formally denied this claim, and revealed messages from a WhatsApp conversation between those in charge of reviewing the federal budget to prove it.
"We pointed out in due course that there were flaws in the budget explanatory notes," that De Bleeker's team had sent out, "that did not correlate to the budget announcements or the budget implementation rules," the PM's office concluded.
