Flemish Budget Cuts Loom for Education and Welfare

Flemish Vice Minister-President Hilde Crevits (CD&V) has signaled that budget cuts will be necessary in the education and welfare sectors as the region prepares its next budget exercise, with total savings expected to exceed 1 billion euros. Her remarks, made in the HLN podcast “Het rapport van de Wetstraat” and reported by VRT NWS, highlight the fiscal challenges facing the Flemish government as it seeks to balance its books by 2027.

The Scale of the Challenge

The Flemish budget amounts to approximately 67 billion euros annually, with education consuming 20 billion euros and welfare 18 billion euros — together accounting for more than half of all regional spending. According to Crevits, any meaningful budget exercise cannot ignore these two dominant expenditure areas.

“A budget exercise without looking at those two items is impossible,” Crevits said in the podcast, as HLN reported. While she declined to specify the exact total savings figure ahead of an announcement expected by the end of the week, she acknowledged: “But I suspect the exercise will be above the billion [euros].”

Protecting the Vulnerable

Despite the need for broad-based cuts, Crevits drew clear lines on which areas CD&V would find unacceptable to touch. “Elderly care is very difficult,” she stated. “It would be very hard for CD&V to accept cuts on the elderly.”

Her remarks reflect the delicate balancing act facing the coalition government of N-VA, Vooruit, and CD&V, which took office in September 2024 under Minister-President Matthias Diependaele. The Regering-Diependaele holds 65 of 124 seats in the Flemish Parliament, with N-VA providing five ministers, Vooruit two, and CD&V two.

Coalition Tensions Over Spending Priorities

Crevits’ comments also exposed friction within the coalition over spending priorities. N-VA has expressed interest in preserving its planned expansion policies, but CD&V has reservations. “It would be good to look at new investments and see what is needed now and what we can postpone,” Crevits said.

She also pushed back against the notion that certain policy areas should be off-limits entirely. “The minister-president says: we’re not going to touch the economy. Sorry, that’s not how it works,” she added, according to HLN’s liveblog coverage.

On innovation support — a key priority for N-VA — Crevits proposed a “return on investment” model. “We must focus on return on investment. That the support is repaid if an innovation succeeds,” she said. She also suggested that service vouchers (dienstencheques) could be adjusted to account for the rising cost of living.

Context: A Region Under Fiscal Pressure

The Flemish budget discussions come against the backdrop of significant fiscal pressures across Belgium. In the 2026 budget cycle completed last September, the Flemish government found 1.5 billion euros in savings — described at the time as “the largest Flemish consolidation exercise ever.” That effort included a higher care premium and cuts in education and welfare.

The federal government, meanwhile, is seeking approximately 10 billion euros in savings to bring the national budget in line with European requirements by 2029. As VRT NWS noted in its analysis of the federal budget challenge, the federal deficit stands at around 5.1 percent of GDP, projected to rise to 6.2 percent by 2031 without action. Government debt is at 110 percent of GDP, projected to reach 122 percent by 2031.

What’s Next

The total savings figure for the Flemish budget exercise is expected to be announced by the end of this week. The announcement will clarify the scope of the cuts and how they will be distributed across education, welfare, and other policy areas.

For CD&V, the coming weeks will test the party’s ability to balance its role as a coalition partner with its commitment to protect elderly care and other vulnerable sectors. As the senior CD&V figure in the Flemish government — a minister since 2007 and Vice Minister-President since 2014 — Crevits’ positions will be central to the negotiations.

The outcome will also be watched closely by education and welfare stakeholders across Flanders, who face the prospect of reduced funding in the 2027 budget cycle. With the government committed to a balanced budget by 2027, the choices made in the coming weeks will shape public services in the region for years to come.