Magnette: Save on Defence, Not Workers
Belgian socialist leader Paul Magnette has called for budget savings to be found in defence spending and in the country’s controversial management-company tax regime, rather than in the pockets of workers and pensioners. In an interview with VRT NWS on Friday morning, the PS president said Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s fiscal approach has failed on its own terms, pointing to a doubling of the deficit and a roughly 20 percent rise in the national debt.
“Mr De Wever had two promises: balance the budget and reward work. He failed on both,” Magnette said. “His policy simply does not work.” The remarks, delivered on the national trade-union action day, sharpen the political battle lines inside and around Belgium’s five-party federal coalition as it scrambles to agree a budget.
Context: A Coalition Under Pressure
Belgium’s federal government — the so-called “Arizona coalition” of N-VA, Vooruit, CD&V, MR and Les Engagés — took office in February 2025 and has been wrestling with a deep fiscal gap ever since. According to Wikipedia’s account of the 2024–2026 government formations, the five parties agreed a coalition in late January 2025 in which Vooruit was the only left-leaning partner, with the PS opting for opposition after losing its position as the largest francophone party.
That configuration has made budget consolidation politically fraught. The government is hunting for roughly 10 billion euros in savings, with the VAT system, healthcare spending and wealth taxation all proving divisive.
”Not So Fast” on Defence
Magnette’s most pointed intervention concerned defence. While accepting that Belgium must meet NATO’s 2 percent of GDP target, he argued the pace should be slowed and the money should do more than buy hardware. He criticised Defence Minister Theo Francken (N-VA) directly.
“Spending money on defence and then saying there is no money left for pensions and workers, that doesn’t work. We must go to 2 percent, but not so fast,” he said. “And we must ensure those expenditures create jobs. Minister Francken does not do that today.”
Writing in French for 21News, Magnette has been blunter still, describing the purchase of weapons abroad — “preferably in the United States” — as a “real waste of public money,” and arguing that Belgium’s problem is not one of spending but of revenue. “It is among the millionaires that we must go find the money,” he said.
Management Companies in the Crosshairs
Magnette also singled out management companies (managementvennootschappen), the personal-company structures through which many self-employed professionals and directors reduce their tax and social-security bills. Vice-premier Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit) has put the annual cost to the state at 4.2 to 4.7 billion euros.
“Everywhere there are excessive expenditures or abuses, we must save. Management companies are a good example,” Magnette said. “Everyone must be taxed at the same level; that is elementary fiscal justice.”
The issue has become a genuine cross-coalition pressure point. According to HLN’s live coverage, CD&V president Sammy Mahdi has said abuses must be tackled, while Anders leader Frédéric De Gucht — who himself uses such a structure — has defended it as “a legal way of doing business.”
The Interest-Rate Sword of Damocles
The timing of Magnette’s remarks is not accidental. The government has been warned repeatedly that Belgium’s debt dynamics are deteriorating fast. As HLN reported, the Debt Agency has cautioned that an “interest snowball” could hit as early as 2029 — two years sooner than previously expected — or even 2028 if rates climb further.
De Wever himself has warned parliament that the measures under discussion “pale in comparison” with what may come. “We are close to the point where draconian measures will be imposed on us,” he said, urging his coalition partners to put “responsibility above political differences.”
The unofficial deadline is 13 October, when the prime minister is due to deliver his State of the Union address in parliament. Few in Brussels now believe that deadline will be met.
A Political Calculation
Magnette’s positioning is also electoral. As 21News notes, recent polls have put the PS back on top in Wallonia, and local elections loom on 13 October. His framing — defend purchasing power, tax the wealthy, slow defence spending — speaks directly to the social-democratic base while contrasting the PS with De Wever’s coalition partners.
What to Watch
Three questions will define the coming days. First, whether De Wever can hold his coalition together long enough to present a budget on 13 October, or whether the deadline slips. Second, whether the management-company question becomes the face-saving revenue source that lets the MR accept a deal without a VAT rise it has declared a red line. And third, whether Magnette’s opposition strategy translates into the local-election gains his party is hoping for — and whether that, in turn, hardens his resistance to any federal compromise.
What is clear is that the fight over Belgium’s budget is no longer just about arithmetic. It is a contest over who pays, how fast, and whose promises are kept.