Proposition 51K0612

Projet de loi contenant le quatrième ajustement du Budget général des dépenses de l'année budgétaire 2003.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP MR Open Vld Vooruit Purple Ⅰ

Submission date

Dec. 22, 2003

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

budget national budget

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Vooruit PS | SP Open Vld MR

Voted to reject

CD&V Ecolo LE N-VA FN VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Richard Fournaux (MR) voted to reject.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 22, 2004 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Dear friends and enemies of CD&V, if the Chairman of the Chamber allows it, I would like to start with a mop. It goes as follows. “At a certain moment God decides to call three major world leaders to Him, because He has very bad news. He has the bad news that the end of time is really near. He calls three world leaders to Him. You can guess the names a little: He calls Putin, Bush and Verhofstadt to Him. He brings the very bad news: “Friends, “the end of time is near.” Putin goes to the Duma and says: "Comrades, I have bad news twice. The first bad news is that God exists. We have always said that God does not exist, but I have had a conversation with Him and He exists. The second bad news is that the end of time is near, I’m sorry. You will all have to draw your plan, but it is so.” Bush goes to Congress and says, “I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that God exists. We have always said that God exists. I have had a conversation with Him and He exists. The bad news is that the end of time is near. Drag all your plan, it won’t take long. God be with you.” Then comes Verhofstadt. He does not go to Parliament, but calls the press and says, “Friends, I have good news twice. The first good news is that I am called to God. Chirac and Schröder were not there, but I was there as prime minister of our country. That is a good sign, that is a sign that we are on the right path with the model state, that is good publicity for our country.” Then they ask him for the second good news. Verhofstadt says: “This is obvious. God Himself has said that I will remain Prime Minister until the end of time. “”

Dear friends, the budget and its amendments are therefore drawn up with the idea that the end of times is for very soon. The future vision is completely missing in this budget. What prevails is a mentality of after us the flood. I would like to highlight some arguments the government cites to defend its policies. I would like to disprove them.

The government says that the Belgacom operation is financially neutral to the government. I would like to say three things about this. I assume there are some doubts with the VLD faction about the second good news, but you must decide how you arrange it. I would like to say three things about whether or not the Belgacom operation is financially neutral. First, we have never challenged the transaction sum itself. We believe that the actuarians have done a good job there. Second, we do not reject the transaction itself. The acquisition itself is good news for Belgacom and its employees.

It is now apparent that the pension burden for Belgian workers, which the government must pay, in the year 2005 for example, will amount to 270 million euros. That is roughly equal to the interest rate that the government saves in that year. By the year 2020, Mr. De Gucht, it appears that the pension burden will be 446 million euros. That is twice as much as the savings interest rate. That is a first hole in the calculation of your government.

Secondly, you assume that the €5 billion will remain untouched from 2010. Otherwise, your interest rate would fall. However, you expect that amount will remain untouched in order to be used for the Silver Fund. This is a second hole in your calculation.

Thirdly, you count the dividends in the calculations. In any case, you would have received these dividends from Belgacom, even if you had not booked them in that way. That is a third hole in your calculation.

Fourth, your calculation stops in the year 2023 while it is very clear that the retirement burdens continue until the year 2050. That is the fourth hole in your calculation.

Fifth, you do not take into account that Belgacom may, by virtue of this operation, incur the imposition of EUR 1.5 billion in its costs. That means 600 million in corporate tax as well as 450 million in dividends are escaped from the government. The argument that the Minister cited in the committee does not stand. Belgacom plans to incorporate Proximus into a separate company.

In summary, it is therefore very clear that the Belgian cooperation is absolutely not financially neutral for the public finances. For each euro that you deposit as receipts, it shows that there is one euro of obligations against you.

Dear VLD group, you have approved a Parmalat budget. Parmalat refers to the Italian dairy company of the same name that also thought it could make 5 billion euros of debt disappear from the books without anyone noticing it.

A second argument that you cite is that the Belgian cooperation had to be booked in this way, because the reduction of the personal tax would otherwise have to be postponed. However, recent facts show that you have postponed this personal tax anyway. As you do not adjust the corporate advance tax to the new tax-free amounts, this tax reduction will have any effect only in 2006. That means that only seven years after Verhofstadt came to power, people will finally notice something of that tax reduction. This contrasts very strongly with the great zeal you put on the day when you raised taxes this summer. When you raised the excise duties this summer, the measures were already in place, before they were published in the Staatsblad. So you are doing the opposite of what Schröder is doing in Germany. Schröder is a socialist chancellor who is going to anticipate tax cuts. In our country we have a liberal chancellor who will postpone the tax cuts.

What a contrast, ladies and gentlemen! What a departure for the VLD!

Therefore, we say more than ever that the tax cuts in this country are like the UFOs. A lot of people talk about it, but very few have actually seen it. UFO is defined as an unidentified fiscal object. This is due to the VLD group.

The government also says that it did not know that the Belgacom operation could not be booked in two fiscal years, but that it did not actually intend to do so. The Minister stated in the Infrastructure Committee that she had never said that the Belgacom operation would be booked twice. However, it is clear in Article 8, § 1, of the Belgacom Act that the accounting manipulation with premeditated advice was planned. In fact, the law stipulates that after 31 December 2003 an additional period of 15 days would be left to pay out part of the Belgacom money in the new financial year.

I would also like to quote from The Time — then The Financial Economic Time — of 14 October 2003. In this newspaper it says: "Minister of Budget Johan Vande Lanotte gave yesterday morning, after many nightly hours of hesitation, the green light to carry out the transfer in two parts." The doubts that are being sown about this now are therefore completely misplaced. The minister replies: "Only this morning I got the assurance from the experts of Belgacom and other advisors that the spread over two years is possible."In other words, there was no doubt at all that the operation would be spread over two years.

A fourth argument that the government cites is that the Belgian cooperation should be booked in this way, because otherwise the pensions could not be paid. It is clear that the Belgacom operation absolutely does not change the enormous challenge of being able to pay out pensions from 2010. Against each euro asset, which is now in the Silver Fund thanks to the Belgacom operation, stands the same euro liability. This means that compared to everything that enters the fund, there are liabilities for the same amount.

Let us take a closer look at what the choices of Verhofstadt and his government have been and what they could have been. Let us compare Verhofstadt with Dehaene II.

The figures are cumulative, expressed as a percentage of gross domestic product and compare Verhofstadt and Dehaene II with Dehaene I.

During the Dehaene I period, the euro was not yet in place. So we couldn’t take advantage of the low interest rates we know now. It is thanks to Dehaene that we have entered the European Monetary Union. So it is also thanks to Dehaene that we can enjoy the low interest rate.

Both governments have benefited from low interest rates. Dehaene II collected 8 percentage points, while Verhofstadt gained 16 percentage points.

Dear VLD faction, both governments have increased the tax burden, both Dehaene and Verhofstadt. Dehaene did that cumulatively with 1.4% of gross domestic product. However, Verhofstadt did that with much more, namely with 1.8 percentage points. The story of the high tax pressure in Belgium is indeed not new, although it turns out clearly that the Verhofstadt government has made another step on top of it.

The sum of the interest benefit and the increase of the tax pressure ...

Mr Bogert, I must draw your attention to Article 48 of our Rules of Procedure, which includes a brief discussion with application of Article 116. That is a little Latin but in intelligent Dutch means that you should try to decide.

Mr. Speaker, I have done a lot here. I will try to make it a little shorter.

The question now is what happened next with this policy space. Dehaene, the ants, chose to save pensions and future employment. Thus, in addition to the policy space he took from the interest advantage and the already limited increase in the tax pressure, he saved another 9.6 percentage points. So he invested a total of 19 percentage points in the future. In billions of euros, this means 52 billion euros. Verhofstadt found and still finds it not necessary to save. So he spent 3.8 percentage points, making the reduction of government debt only 14 percentage points.

The impact of the difference in approach is huge, namely 5% of the gross domestic product. That amount is a multiplier of what is real in the Silver Fund. In the Silver Fund there is only money for one month of retirement.

The government manifestsly masks its actual choices and does not have the courage to come out for the choices it makes. Economic cycles take us from one valley to another valley. If one does not supply enough in the valley of milk and honey and then enters the valley of cold and fog, then one will effectively leave the people in the cold.

The government will keep pensioners in the cold for the next few decades. Even though your own colleague Vandenbroucke now grumblingly admits — at that point we are allies — that it becomes ⁇ tight to get back on the right path, we see in practice in the policy and also in the recent measures no intention to do anything about it. There is a need for an alternative in this country.

CD&V has this alternative in the form of a pension savings pot. The aim is to secure pensions. Instead of waiting for the end of the year as with the Silver Fund and looking to see if there is anything left to pay out pensions and apply some tricks, it is a much better approach to put money aside in advance at the beginning of the year, to reserve for pensions. Your government does not do that. Vandebroucke says the government does. She does not do it at all. She simply puts money aside for the current year, but does not reserve anything for the future, for the pensions from 2010.

Meanwhile, the Planning Bureau has announced that until 2008 there will be absolutely no surplus, in other words that the Silver Fund will be completely underfunded to pay the pensions from 2010. Your group, Mr Van der Maelen, is 100% responsible for that. Therefore, as CD&V, we advocate with our alternative to the pension savings pot to set aside one billion euros at the beginning of the year for pensions, in such a way that those pensions are secured. That corresponds to 0.35% of gross domestic product. We hope that various groups will join our alternative as soon as possible.

The question is why a pension savings pot and why not a Silver Fund? It is clear that obtaining surpluses in the Belgian context is ⁇ difficult. I say that across all party boundaries. From the moment one thinks that one has realised a surplus, dozens of lists come up to divide the potential surplus already, so that the surplus is already accumulated before it can be put aside. Therefore, our pension funds in Belgium contain so bitterly few reserves.

I want to decide, Mr. Chairman of the Chamber.

The situation is dramatic. I don’t think we’re at the end of times, but I think it’s high time for our CD&V alternative in relation to pensions.