Prevot Urges Belgium Budget Talks Without ‘Diktats’

Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot has called on the country’s five-party governing coalition to enter high-stakes federal budget negotiations without preconditions, warning that a negotiating table ringed by red lines and taboos risks producing only a diminished deal.

Speaking on RTBF’s “Jeudi en Prime” program, the Les Engages leader and foreign minister said the so-called budget conclave — set to begin in early October — must be approached “without making exclusives or diktats” as the government seeks roughly €10 billion in additional savings. “We must start this exercise without making exclusives or diktats,” Prevot said, according to RTBF.

His intervention lays bare the deepening ideological divide inside Belgium’s “Arizona” coalition — an unusual five-party alliance of N-VA, MR, Les Engages, CD&V and Vooruit, sworn in under Prime Minister Bart De Wever in 2025.

A 10 Billion Euro Test for the Arizona Coalition

The government has committed to finding an additional €10 billion in effort for 2029 to keep public finances on a sustainable path, on top of previously approved savings. As La Libre reported, the government formally agreed to the target in July on the basis of the monitoring committee’s report, with a budget agreement expected in October.

De Wever launched the process with bilateral talks on 8 September, beginning with Vice-Premiers Vincent Van Peteghem (CD&V) and Prevot (Les Engages), and is aiming for a deal by 13 October, the date of his State of the Union address and the deadline for figures awaited by the European Commission. As RTBF noted, the Prime Minister hopes to avoid a repeat of last year, when an agreement came only after weeks of delay and forced the use of provisional twelfths.

The Divide: New Taxes or Spending Cuts

At the heart of the standoff is a fundamental disagreement over how to close the gap. On one side, MR president Georges-Louis Bouchez has flatly rejected new taxes, including a VAT increase, and insists the solution lies in cutting public spending. On the other, Les Engages argue that revenue must be part of the equation.

Bouchez has framed the debate in uncompromising terms. “We are the most taxed country in the world,” he said on the same program a week earlier, telling RTBF that “spending ever more money is not the solution.” He also warned against reopening the government agreement, which caps new taxation at one-ninth of the overall effort — a ceiling he contends has already been reached.

Prevot pushed back, invoking Bouchez’s own rhetoric. “I heard Georges-Louis Bouchez say we don’t expect politicians to make compromises but to be statesmen and stateswomen,” he said. “It is precisely because we seek to be statesmen and stateswomen in Belgium that we must know how to compromise.”

The fiscal philosophy dividing the partners is sharp. “Nothing justifies that a euro earned through work be taxed more heavily than a euro earned on the stock market,” Prevot argued, calling for a rethink of Belgium’s tax system — a nod toward a wealth tax proposal that Les Engages unveiled over the summer.

That proposal, championed by Les Engages president Yvan Verougstraete, would introduce an annual contribution on financial assets above €500,000, excluding real estate, targeting the wealthiest 5% and aiming to raise about €2 billion. As RTBF reported, Bouchez dismissed it as “taxation rage,” “more radical than the communists” and “economic madness.”

The clash is not only fiscal but electoral: MR and Les Engages are now neck-and-neck in the polls, with Les Engages siphoning centre-right votes while the wealth tax proposal courts centre-left sympathy. Polls suggest broad public support for taxing large fortunes, including among right-wing voters.

Inside the Conclave

Prevot has pushed for an unusually intense negotiating format. Borrowing from the Vatican model — from the Latin cum clave, “with key” — the conclave would see the Prime Minister and deputy ministers locked away until a deal emerges, signaled by “white smoke.” He wants it done “fully, sleeping in the same place non-stop until we obtain a result,” and crucially “without telephone,” to shield negotiators from pressure by party presidents.

“If we arrive at the table excluding from the menu a whole series of potential dishes because some are indigestible to the neighbour, we’ll have to do a reduced exercise,” he warned, adding that “we won’t succeed if everyone starts making a fairground of red lines and taboos.”

Despite the tensions, Prevot expressed “full confidence” in De Wever’s determination to deliver a result, and said he believes each coalition partner shares that resolve.

Social and Political Pressure Mounts

The negotiations are unfolding against a backdrop of rising social tension. Belgium’s socialist FGTB and Christian CSC unions have announced a joint demonstration in Brussels on 9 October, describing it as a “clear first warning” to the federal government. The FGTB has set three “red lines” — any unilateral hit to wage indexation, a VAT increase, and the annualisation of working time — and has warned it holds a mandate to call a general strike in the week of 23 November if those lines are crossed. The unions have put forward alternative budget measures worth €21 billion, RTBF reported.

The stakes extend beyond the budget itself. The government faces backdrops including internal disagreement over visas for 13 Palestinian scholarship students from Gaza — a file Prevot wants discussed in kern “without losing sight of the imperative of humanity” — and the unresolved formalisation of Belgium’s recognition of Palestine, which awaits a second condition: the exclusion of Hamas from any governance role.

What to Watch

The coming weeks will test whether the Arizona coalition can translate its declared goodwill into a concrete deal. The key question is whether Les Engages can secure revenue-based measures such as wealth taxation or tax-niche reform, or whether the MR will hold its no-new-taxes line — a choice that could determine not only the shape of the budget but the durability of the government itself.

With a deal sought by mid-October, a union demonstration days before that deadline, and the threat of a general strike looming in November, Prevot’s call for good-faith negotiation without “diktats” may prove easier to voice than to realise.