Proposition 53K3268

Projet de loi contenant le deuxième ajustement du Budget général des dépenses pour l'année budgétaire 2013.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP the Di Rupo government

Submission date

Dec. 23, 2013

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

budget national budget

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit LE PS | SP Open Vld MR

Voted to reject

∉ N-VA VB

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo LDD

Party dissidents ¶

• Bernard Clerfayt (MR) voted to reject.
• Peter Luykx (CD&V) voted to reject.
• Olivier Maingain (MR) voted to reject.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Feb. 12, 2014 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I refer to the written report.

Then I will immediately give you the word for your intervention in the general discussion.

Mrs. Speaker, colleagues, Mr. Minister, Mr. Secretary of State, only two weeks ago I stood here in favour of a law that contained nothing at all and changed nothing at all, but ultimately could still count on the full support of the current majority.

This design is similar again. Later or later, an adjustment of the 2013 budget, i.e. of last year, will be approved here as a regularization for spending that the government has made without having the legal authority to do so. That is where it comes down. The expenditure for which the budget is now being drafted has taken place one by one without the prior consent of the House of Representatives and without the prior consent of all of us here, which we should do if we want to respect fiscal legislation. The Minister is also expected to respect them.

That is all good and yes. The government is coming to Parliament with a second budget adjustment, first to the committee and now to the plenary session. It invokes an exception for expenses incurred, in particular Article 70 of the Act of 22 May 2003 on the Organisation of the Budget and of the Accounting of the Federal State.

In urgent cases caused by exceptional or unforeseeable circumstances, the Council of Ministers may, upon reasoned deliberation, authorise the fixation, liquidation and payment of expenses exceeding the limit of the budgetary appropriations or, in the absence of such, to the amount fixed by the deliberation.

If there is a flood for which no funds have been raised but need to be resolved, you can imagine that the Council of Ministers can authorize the funds.

What is this second budget adjustment? These are a few prut cases but also an important point, which the Court of Auditors has also noted, by the way, the change of throne in July 2013. The question is, then, what was urgent or unpredictable at the time when the government began preparing for this budget adjustment in December 2013 in relation to the change of throne that took place in July 2013.

The Court of Auditors, as we have stated, in its letter of 15 January 2014 on budget consultation No. 3228 of 13 December 2013, having been adopted as follows in the discussion which the Minister is now invoking to conclude this amendment by Parliament, and I quote:

The Court of Auditors considers that the condition of unpredictability is not fulfilled. After all, it notes that almost six months have passed since the throne distance. A draft budgetary adjustment opening the appropriations necessary for the execution of the aforementioned expenditure could therefore have been submitted in a timely manner.’

The same applies to the GDP contribution to the European Union, as there is a report of the Monitoring Committee of 13 June 2013. “The figure does not take into account the fact that in the course of the year another solution must be sought for the additional appropriations refused following the second budget adjustment in the amount of 3.9 billion euros. It is therefore implicitly assumed that it will not be allocated or at least partially compensated by a revision of revenue.”

This was also known on 13 June, even before the replacement of the throne, but one has waited until January of this year to come to Parliament with it. You will wonder why. As for the change of the throne, that is what we have to guess. As for the GDP contribution, I have a suspicion: at the time when it was to be ⁇ , in July, the government did well in the context of its reporting to budget 167 million euros too little.

This is again a prut work. The design comes too late and it is poorly drawn up. We will therefore vote against.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, having already had the opportunity to hear the Minister of the Budget and to question him about this adjustment of the budget 2013, my speech will not be long. It will limit itself to recall the main axes of this adjustment and to return to the actuality.

The first point that attracts attention is the momentum of this bill. It seems surprising to decide in 2014 on an adjustment to the 2013 budget. However, we have had the opportunity to remind, the political discussions within the Comori as well as the late vote of the bill fixing the King's civil list allowed only very late to determine the definitive amount of allocations, which left only little time to elaborate and have the House vote on a budget adjustment before the end of the year. In addition, other equally important projects were discussed.

Therefore, the Government has decided to use the procedure referred to in Article 70 of the Law of 22 May 2003 on the organization of the federal state budget and accounting, i.e. an increase in the budgetary credit by deliberation of the Council of Ministers. This is a procedure that seems fully justified.

Changes to the budget lines...

Mr. President, Mr. Destrebecq says exactly the opposite of what I just said, in particular that there is no reason for the exception, as described in Article 70...

I need an earring for mr. by Destrebecq.

Mr Vandeput, I thank you for your understanding.

Mr. Destrebecq, I will try to explain myself in French.

You say that the use of the exception of the 2003 law is fully justified. Personally, I say something else. I would like you to explain to me where the urgency and the inability to predict events are, which are both cases provided by law to allow the exception.

Mr. Vandeput, I thank you for your tolerance and for your translation.

If you allow me, I will continue and probably, or ⁇ ⁇ , answer your question.

As you know, we discussed this in a committee where all the arguments were presented. The government did what it had to do in time and with the means that were its own. It was difficult for him to do otherwise.

As for the modification of the budget lines relating to the allocation allocated to the European Union, it also explains. On the one hand, like all other EU states, we underestimated the amount allocated, so that as of June, a 100 million increase was needed. On the other hand, as the international trade situation was poor, customs revenue fell and a second increase was needed. Finally, the grant granted by Belgium increased by almost 250 million euros.

The bad economic situation was also not directly foreseeable; thus, again, the use of the deliberation procedure in the Council of Ministers was justified.

Finally, the third and last point that I think is essential: the mainmort.

As the Minister recalled during the debates, this special credit is registered, each year, in the budget of the SPF Interior in favour of the municipalities on whose territory there are immune properties from real estate pre-count. This compensation serves to compensate for the lack of earnings of the municipalities in question. When one knows, dear colleagues, the state of the municipal finances, one easily understands the importance of this compensation.

The changes made to the initial amounts are therefore the result of the update of the municipal exempt cadastral data provided by the SPF Finances (Administration of the Cadastre) and the list of parcels modified compared to the previous year. In this regard, it seems to me that the explanations of the Minister have helped to figure out the reason for the evolution of these figures.

However, I allow myself to ask you again, Mr. Minister of the Budget, which will most likely provide answers to questions that some colleagues may ask themselves. Thus, during the debate in the committee, you stated that you would be able to present us the final results of the year 2013, as early as the end of January. Today we are in mid-February. So I imagine that you can easily give us explanations on this subject and thus fulfill your commitment. How will the 2014 budget be monitored? Will there be fiscal prudential measures?