De Wever Opens Belgium Budget Talks With Stark Warning

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has delivered a formal starting note to the five parties of his federal coalition, formally launching the budget negotiations that will dominate the country’s political agenda this autumn. Speaking at his party’s family day in Plopsaland in De Panne, the N-VA leader described the task ahead as “an extremely difficult exercise” and warned that the talks would not be easy.

“I hope to do a first round tomorrow,” De Wever told VRT NWS. “It is time to seek an agreement. That will be an extremely difficult exercise, I will not deny it. Those will also not be easy conversations, but we must move forward.” The federal core cabinet — the kern — will convene for the first time on the negotiations on Monday morning at 10:00.

A €10 Billion Puzzle

At the heart of the exercise is a search for roughly €10 billion in structural savings. The government is aiming to bring Belgium’s public finances back in line with European norms and to avoid what officials call the “interest snowball” (rentesneeuwbal) — the point at which rising debt-servicing costs crowd out other spending.

Belgium is already among the most indebted countries in the eurozone, with a debt ratio of about 109 percent of GDP, far above the Maastricht norm of 60 percent. In June, the Federal Planning Bureau warned that without corrective action, debt could reach 122 percent of GDP and a structural deficit above 6 percent by 2031, with the deficit estimated at 5.1 percent of GDP in 2026 and rising to 6.4 percent by 2031. Experts cited by VRT have said at least €7.7 billion in savings is needed just to keep the budget under control; the government’s €10 billion target is designed to provide a safety margin against the debt spiral.

De Wever said the starting note contained no surprises. “In principle there are no surprises in that note. We prepared it for months,” he said. “The proposals have already gone in all directions and have been calculated many times by the Planning Bureau.”

The Arizona Coalition’s Fragile Arithmetic

De Wever’s government, sworn in on 3 February 2025, is an unusual construct. The five-party “Arizona coalition” — N-VA, Vooruit and CD&V on the Flemish side, and MR and Les Engagés on the francophone side — holds 81 of the Chamber’s 150 seats. It was the first Belgian federal government supported by a majority in both language groups since the Leterme I government in 2008, and the first ever led by a Flemish nationalist.

The internal balancing act helps explain why the budget talks are so fraught. The coalition spans parties with sharply divergent views on taxation, welfare and the role of the state. Finding €10 billion in cuts or new revenue — and keeping all five partners on board — is precisely the difficulty De Wever flagged in his remarks to VRT and VTM NIEUWS.

The prime minister has also worked to keep the negotiations narrowly focused. Asked whether the note touches on institutional reform — a perennial fault line in Belgian politics — De Wever was explicit. “Much is being made of that state reform, because I gave an honest answer in a committee,” he said. “I do not intend to bring the institutional question into this round.”

That stance follows his earlier, more expansive comments. In the Chamber on 16 September, De Wever argued that a thorough institutional overhaul was unavoidable in the longer term. “This Belgium can only handle one more round of consolidation,” he said, adding that a second round of roughly €10 billion would be needed in the next legislature — and that this “could not happen without a state reform.” Those remarks triggered intense reactions from the opposition, particularly from PS chairman Paul Magnette, who insisted such a reform “will never happen” because no two-thirds majority can be assembled.

From the “White Folder” to the Table

The proposals now circulating trace back to the so-called wit kaftje — the “little white folder” that De Wever has used to frame the budget debate. As VRT NWS detailed, the folder amounts to a menu of costed options rather than a single plan. Ideas floated in recent weeks include limiting the healthcare growth norm, raising patient co-payments, reforming the corporate tax treatment of non-profits, and various forms of VAT adjustment — each fiercely contested by one coalition partner or another.

Other ideas have been effectively ruled out before talks even began. The reduction or abolition of the tax regime for company cars, worth as much as €5.5 billion, has been rejected by both MR and N-VA. A budget proposal from CD&V chairman Sammy Mahdi to apply a one-off index skip (indexsprong) only to the unemployed — worth about €100 million a year — has drawn sharp criticism from the Christian-democratic civil-society network Beweging.net, which called targeting benefit claimants again “not just.”

Meanwhile, the opposition has offered its own counter-proposals. Vlaams Belang chairman Tom Van Grieken has called for a spending cap limiting government outlays to 50 percent of GDP, noting that Belgium currently spends just over 54 percent. Other proposals have floated taxes on large fortunes, an approach MR and N-VA oppose.

A Deadline That Cannot Slip

De Wever has repeatedly stressed the importance of timing. Belgium’s budget work is normally due by 13 October, when the prime minister delivers his state of the union and the European Commission expects the country’s budget submission. Last year the deadline was missed, forcing the government onto provisional twelfths (voorlopige twaalfden) — a stopgap funding mechanism that De Wever is determined to avoid repeating.

“The goal is not to resort to provisional twelfths,” he told the Chamber. “So you have to allow a certain margin in planning and timing. I hope everyone is aware of that. I hope so, but I am not certain.”

He has also warned that external conditions are unhelpful. “We are facing headwinds and no tailwinds,” he said, noting that Belgium has little room to maneuver on competitiveness.

What to Watch

Monday’s first kern meeting marks the start of what are expected to be weeks of hard bargaining. The government’s internal dynamics — with a liberal MR pressing for spending cuts over tax rises, and Vooruit and Les Engagés resisting deep welfare reductions — will be tested at every turn. The Flemish regional government, led by Matthias Diependaele, is simultaneously negotiating its own budget and needs an estimated €1.5 to €2 billion, adding a parallel and politically sensitive track, especially around child benefits.

Labor unions, meanwhile, have announced a national demonstration for 9 October by the socialist ABVV and Christian ACV, signaling that social pressure will build as the talks intensify. De Wever has acknowledged the stakes in his characteristically frank style, telling an employers’ event earlier this month that “failure is not an option” — and that “a person would get a little nervous from less.”

Whether Belgium can convert that resolve into a deal by mid-October is now the central question of its political autumn. The starting note is on the table. The counting has begun.