Proposition 54K1804

Projet de loi contenant le premier ajustement du budget des Voies et Moyens de l'année budgétaire 2016.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

May 27, 2016

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

budget national budget

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR

Voted to reject

Groen Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI PVDA | PTB VB

Abstained from voting

PP

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

June 29, 2016 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The speakers are MM. Benoît Piedboeuf and Stéphane Crusnière. They return to the written report.

Today we are discussing the 2016 budget adjustment, it is not too early!

The least I can say is that things have gone. And this is mainly due to the delay with which the government submitted to parliament its draft adjustment. At a point like this, there is now a congestion. Indeed, the new report of the Monitoring Committee is already announced, which should set the extent of the effort to be provided for the 2017 budget in the context you know.

This context is the one put forward by both the National Bank and the Plan Bureau, which consider that in order to reach the balance in 2018 the government will need to find 8 to 9 billion euros by 2018.

We warned you, you didn’t want to listen. Your accidental management of tax revenues, your tax shift unfinanced – it must be remembered that your tax shift is not financed at 50% – your chronic denial of the Court of Auditors’ remarks, put you in a very difficult situation today.

In addition, we learn from the press that you could postpone your budget conclave for the year 2017. And thus the trajectory to the horizon 2018-2019. You would, as the press continues to read, take Brexit as a pretext.

Then it will need to be clarified. Will you, yes or no, postpone the budget conclave? We want clear answers.

Indeed, otherwise, we would see there the will in your head not to face immediately the difficulties and the difficult choices that impose, today, on you because of your policy.

Will you have the courage to put an end to your austerity policy, to go looking for the means where they are rather than in the pockets of our fellow citizens whose consumption taxes you have raised in unprecedented proportions? Will you stop doing cuts in public services and social security?

We need all these answers because Parliament cannot be held by your agenda. Therefore, we ask you to draw the main lines of your new budget plan today. In summary, where will you find the eight to nine billion that you lack?

That being said, let us return to the 2016 budget adjustment, an adjustment overtaken by the evolution of tax revenues at the beginning of the year which is not taken into account in the context of that adjustment. Indeed, as I said during our committee work, there is already a gap of more than one billion euros between the achievements of the first three months of 2016 and the revenues of the same period in 2015. This is especially worrying and it leaves no good for the rest of the year. I have asked you on this issue several times in the commission without receiving a satisfactory response, which I regret.

If things were to be confirmed, that is, if the situation was to deteriorate throughout the year, the impact on the structural balance would be significant and this would weigh a already very significant bill for your trajectory at the horizon of 2018.

Since we are in the recipes, let’s stay there. In this regard, the opposition has the exhausting feeling of being always confronted with the same reality: a certain approximation.

The Court of Auditors itself is questioning the “realism” of some new measures. Let’s make a short quick review of these – we will not be as long as in commission – for our colleagues who do not sit in the Finance Committee and who are interested in financial matters. Because the latter is central, Mr. Miller knows, he who has experience.

The new tax regime for the Sicafi, which we have not yet voted for, and for which you expect a return of 250 million euros. These are not realistic: we are in June 2016. For 116 million, or almost half, the Court of Auditors explains that this will not be a structural measure but one shot. Why do you not take this into account?

The second point concerns the increase in electricity VAT. There has been a lot of controversy about the amount of return. You talked about more than 700 million, while the Court of Auditors announced about 500 million. The Court of Auditors returns to a particular point concerning the abuses you mentioned to justify the increase in VAT from 6 to 21%. You estimate these VAT abuses on electricity at 188 million and the Court of Auditors announces you 40 million. Why do you not take this into account?

Then, let’s talk about the Caiman tax, the transparency tax. There is no hearing in the Panama Papers committee where experts do not tell us, like the people we question, that the transparency tax has weaknesses. Not only did we tell you that the 460 million were already a ⁇ optimistic estimate, the maximum limit of the upper limit, the tax administration said -M.Ducarme can testify because I told this assembly in plenary - but here is that, in the tax doctrine, among the people we question in the Panama papers commission, it is said that there are weaknesses in this device. But even here, nothing is done, you keep your 460 million.

The tax on intercommunals is an ideological measure. He needed an electoral trophy. They got it with the Intercommunal Tax. In the end, it will be the people who will pay more but obviously, this has not prevented the vote on this measure. Fortunately, we were able to adapt it somewhat thanks to constructive proposals from the opposition on which the majority of us have also joined us. They should be greeted for that. I want to be fair. The problem is that this tax on intercommunals is hit with an appeal before the Constitutional Court. This is again an important measure that is hit by uncertainty and that weakens your budget!

As regards the diamond tax, the Court of Auditors and the Council of State had pointed out the danger of qualifying it as a state aid. In doing so, you have re-adapted the device, you have re-calibrated it a little but what is telling us that it will be enough in the eyes of Europe? What tells us that this carat tax will, too, be able to be a solid measure that will generate a reliable return, regardless of the moral and ethical problems it poses? We have exposed them extensively here and I will not return to them. In short, those 50 million euros are also hypothetical.

Another issue is tax regulation, which has not yet been voted. We are aware of the disadvantages of the regions. This is working in progress. Let us not stay on the legal aspects and, I would say, on institutional policy or institutional relations. Let’s talk about the budgetary aspects. Are the 250 million euros credible? We are in June and the measure has not yet been voted. The answer is no, of course. You should initiatively review the veil of this measure, in terms of its budgetary performance at least.

Another point: the VAT exemption on gambling and betting. I’m not talking about the subject in the background, we’ll discuss it again at another time. You expect 39 million euros except that there too, the Court of Auditors says to you: "Attention, the yield is overestimated! Attention, potential problem of competence distribution between the federal and the Regions!" There too, new uncertainty.

To finish this small catalogue, we come to the measures entitled 'Panama Papers'; 65 million expected return. The Court of Auditors explains in detail why this amount also appears to be overestimated since only a few measures of this set are subject to convincing explanations.

In summary, dear colleagues, when we make an inventory of all these uncertainties, we can conclude that for almost a billion euros, there is a certain doubt about the revenues attached to these new provisions. One billion that adds to the billion slower tax revenue. That’s why I think you already have an additional bill of two billion euros, or an additional hole of two billion euros, which is there, during, and that could add to what you already have to find for 2018, that is, the 8 to 9 billion, a bill that could climb up to 11 billion euros. 11 billion euros to be found in two or three years. Can you imagine what situation you have plunged yourself into, and into which you are plunging the whole country?

We obviously hope that you will not reinforce your austerity policy as it has been so far, i.e. gigantic increases in excise duties and VAT. According to my calculations, you have increased consumer taxes by more than two billion over the last two years. And we will go towards 2.8 billion euros when we reach the end of the legislature; 2.8 billion euros of increased consumption taxes over the entire legislature. Are you aware of what you do? I’m not even talking about macroeconomic aspects and how this will plummet domestic demand.

In any case, you will look in unprecedented proportions in people’s pockets, and in an unequal way since, as you know, these taxes are regressive, that is, they are distributed in an unequal way; they weigh heavier on the smaller incomes.

I also hope that you will not continue to make cuts in public services. I will have the opportunity to come back soon. The three billion that you will seek from the SNCB, the linear reductions of funds towards departments. Look at the state of suffering that the Department of Justice is in. There are also savings in the SPF Finance. The Court’s report also explains that development aid will not have the means to meet all its objectives.

In short, when will you put an end to this ⁇ disastrous policy? Because in addition, when they are not cuts, they are so-called savings. And then comes the redesign of the administration, the famous 100 million euros. There, we witnessed a ping-pong game: you sent the ball back to each other. When you were asked questions, you explained that it was mr. Vandeput who had to answer and when our colleagues questioned the latter, he referred to the Minister of Budget.

You gave us, Mrs. Minister, some explanations in the committee, which were not convincing, it must be said, because you explained to us that there was a kind of project that was underway, that lines were drawn. When we go into detail, on the other hand, we stay on our hunger.

This is basically where we are today. In essence, your budget adjustment is just a reflection of your policy, as was the budget itself. That is why the questions we ask you today are relatively simple. These are questions that also indicate your responsibility.

What are the findings? You are not seeking to manage the state better. You cut off his wings without discernment and with brutality. You are not seeking to promote tax justice. You confirm some privileges – I think of the diamond sector. You multiply the measurements to uncertain yields and you continue to pipe into the pocket of households.

The conclusion is also that you ignore what many studies say: that the heritage is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a minority, in particular the financial heritage, and that it is ⁇ to them, by a more suitable taxation, that it is necessary to demand an additional effort rather than to raise the taxes on consumption.

We will therefore vote against your budget adjustment because it translates an unfair and harmful policy: harmful to people, harmful to public services, harmful to our public finances and harmful also to the economic prosperity of our country.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, Mr. Minister, colleagues, this budget control takes place in a ⁇ uncertain context. Growth remains low, even in the coming years. We have seen the forecasts of the Plan Bureau, which speaks of 1.4 % growth this year and 1.5 % in the following years. In fact, we need growth of at least 2%, both in terms of sustainable economic development and in terms of budgetary situation.

The attacks in Paris and Brussels have a negative impact. Now comes the Brexit. Despite a number of favorable conditions, such as low oil prices and negative interest rates, these events make our growth not get the necessary boost.

The employment prospects are positive. The Planning Office and the National Bank are expected to create 40 000 jobs annually in the coming years, or 230 000 jobs between 2016 and 2021. They say that by the measures taken on competitiveness and by the fundamental health of our economy on investment in technology, our economy is very performing. Competitiveness has been restored and that explains the strong job creation. The fact that employment is increasing is also an important additional asset for the coming years.

Mr. Laaouej always talks about the associative policy. However, the latest statistics from the Plan Bureau and the National Bank of Belgium on the purchasing power evolution teach us that the real available income of the families, individuals, will generally increase by 1.4 % in 2016 and in the following years by 1.6 %. Within two years, the real disposable income would increase by 2.2%. All the stories, as if the purchasing power of the average Belgian would be violated, are completely contradicted by the statistics of the Plan Bureau and of the National Bank of Belgium.

If one looks at party politics, in the year 2013 according to statistics of the National Bank of Belgium, the real available income of the individuals in Belgium decreased by 0.6%. Mr Laaouej, in 2013 the real disposable income decreased by 0.6 %, this year it increases by 1.4 % and goes to 2.2 %. Your theory that this government is deflating, that this government is affecting the purchasing power of the people, is contradicted by the National Bank of Belgium. This, of course, has a lot to do with the burden reductions, with the fact that the available income has increased due to the tax reduction. If one takes into account all possible burden increases, we see that the net salary of two earners will rise this year between 65 and 84 euros. Therefore, the criticism of the opposition is wrong. The purchasing power increases. We also take measures to raise the retirement age, including in the context of the cost of aging.

Mr. Laaouej, I read this week an interview with Laurette Onkelinx. I don't know if you read it, it was written somewhere in a Flemish newspaper. She wants to reduce working hours; she wants to return to the 35-hour week with the same salary while we are pursuing a policy to work longer and more flexibly, to ensure that the competitiveness of our companies increases and labour becomes cheaper.

What they want, therefore, is completely contrary to economic policy. The socialist still thinks that the relance will come through more consumption and through the reduction of working hours, that this government works deflatorily and so on, while it is just the opposite. The future is flexible labor and increased purchasing power, but then taking into account the competitiveness. All possible variants apply.

Whether you like it or not, the employment rate will increase in the coming years, from 67% in 2015 to 69% in 2020. So there is no social horror and job creation is important.

But the concern child remains the budget. I have said that for several months. I think it would do injustice... Intellectual honesty also commands to say that the budget is facing a heavy task. Efforts are being made in social security. In the documents accompanied by the report prepared following the discussions, Ms. Wilmès says that 454 million were saved in social security. To say that there is no savings in social security is not correct. Nearly 500 million euros were saved. Therefore, it is not correct to say that there is not enough effort being made there. The RVA saved 481 million in 2015. I think these figures are important.

Mr Van Rompuy, you say that those who claim that there is no savings in social security are mistaken. Who claims that?

I am constantly hearing that this government is actually doing nothing on the spending, that there is not enough effort on the spending side. You just have to read who says it. I just want to say that there is an effort.

Our criticism is different. I suspect you are referring to the colleagues of the N-VA, but our criticism is different. Our criticism is, in particular, that it is actually rough and unfair that here again a fiscal adjustment is defended where much more is sought in social security than, for example, in the Panama tourists. We also discussed this in the Committee on Finance. I will return to that later.

According to the Panama Billan of this majority, this budget adjustment is actually guaranteed for only 7.8 million euros. You can quote the figures on social security. You then understand the criticism — ⁇ not from your partners in the majority, but from a lot of people — that it is not fair to do so much in social security, but so little in terms of tax fraud and tax evasion in the post-Panama world. We still rely a little on CD&V as a social figure in this government to reverse that. Again and again we are faced with the same proportions, the same proportions, more in social security than at the strongest shoulders. I honestly do not understand that.

Finally, Mr. Van Rompuy, I advocate that you listen more to our criticism than to what the N-VA suggests about this budget adjustment in the studios of Terzake and The Seventh Day.

Mr. Van Rompuy, I feel that the celebrations of Rerum Novarum are already behind us. Where is the great Christian democracy that thinks of the cause of the workers, of the evolution of their well-being? I can’t imagine that a person like you can, in the depths of itself, rejoice in the policy led by the government. I think of the index jump, the flexi-jobs. I think of the violations of social consultation. I’m sure you don’t agree with it at all.

However, I will answer two or three points that you mentioned. You are talking to us, in terms of the report of the National Bank and even the Federal Plan Office, of positive employment prospects. You also talk about the evolution of available income. I would like to clarify two points.

First, if one wants to do a real analysis, it is worth observing the employment prospects, as they emerge from the latest report of the Plan Bureau or the National Bank, with those that existed before the implementation of the new policy of the Michel government to know the number of additional jobs created beyond the unchanged policy. In other words, it is necessary to compare the number of jobs created, expected unchanged policy and the positive net effect attributed, justified or not, to the policy of the Michel government. What are we observing? For the period 2015-2017, the number of jobs created is 16,000. In other words, compared to an unchanged policy, you have a net creation of 16,000 jobs. Is it appreciable? and yes! Every job created is valuable, but you need to be able to relate it to the steps you have taken.

Among these so-called measures of competitiveness, two measures were very important: the index jump, or a pointing of 2.5 billion on the wage mass, and reductions of social contributions, or another mass of 2.5 billion over the period. Overall, this means €5 billion in competitiveness measures. When you compare this to the number of jobs created, you get a figure of approximately €200,000 per job.

I would like to hear you congratulate, but what I would like to hear in this lecture are finer and fairer analyses that compare existing job prospects with unchanged policy prospects. We need to go back to those of 2014.

Then, when it comes to jobs, don’t forget that the estimated number of jobs generated by flexi-jobs is 15,000!

Fifteen thousand jobs out of the sixteen thousand I talked about, this already covers a good part. I’m not saying that this is entirely flexi-jobs but this coincides. I would not look forward to creating so few precarious jobs with so many public funds spent, with so many pay-offs.

With regard to the evolution of the available income, we have a methodological divergence. If one keeps on reading the National Bank report, one notes an increase in the available income greater than it was under the previous government. I simply draw your attention to the fact that we must be able to integrate growth rates. As a result of economic growth, there is an increase in available income. Furthermore, it is necessary to look at the distribution of the increase in available income. It should not be confused with increasing wages and increasing available income. Available income is a much broader thing. But where you should be cautious is that with the gigantic increase in consumer taxes – I spoke of more than two billion and we are moving toward the 2.8 billion over the entire legislature – you will mechanically strengthen the inequal distribution of income because consumer taxes weigh more on small and medium income.

You should be careful as the National Bank does not yet incorporate all the effects of the unequal distribution of income due to the increase in consumption taxes, which is a very difficult ex post effect to measure. This is why I asked Mr. The Ministry will provide us with the effects on the redistribution of tax shift revenues. Unfortunately, we did not get them. If I were you, I ⁇ ’t be happy too soon.

We have held this discussion several times, but the real economic growth in 2013 was 1.2%, just like in 2015. Then, in 2013, the available income fell by 0.6%. In 2015, according to statistics, it increased by 1.2%. This year it will increase by 1.4%.

No matter how you turn it or turn it, Mr. Laaouej, you must acknowledge that purchasing power rises. You should be pleased with that. Despite a number of tax increases that are there, the burden reductions, which are there and which – I will return to that later – have not always been financed, have stimulated purchasing power.

I disagree with what the wider working-class movement says. Also the ACV, or beweging.net, says that it is social horror. I do not agree with this. I say that publicly. I have said several times that I absolutely disagree with the assertion that the government is currently pursuing an associal policy. On the contrary, anyone can consult the statistics: the living wage increases by 6 % over a period of a year and the minimum pensions by 4 %. The net salary of two earners increases by 65 to 84 euros. As Christian Democrats, we carry out a social, but also an economic policy. We are fully in the philosophy of this government.

Mr. Van Rompuy, I hear your global statistics, but what I remember is the linear economies this government has in terms of social security and the consequences. Do you know the unemployment rates? Do you know the figures of child poverty, poor families, in which there are children? Do you know the consequences of the abolition of equal periods on women’s pensions? Do you think of the number of young people who will not have access to integration allowances as a result of the measure that prevented them from accessing them before 21 or after 25?

You present global statistics, whereas the measures taken by the government, such as the index jump that was only offset for a fraction of the public, lead the most vulnerable to a situation today increasingly close to poverty, whereas the job creation measures you announce, on the one hand, are very expensive and, on the other, lead to jobs of very poor quality. I think of flexible jobs. You do not care about the economy of the future. If at least the efforts demanded from the citizens would allow to invest in research and development, in the search for energy autonomy, in the investment in the technologies of the future, which could put Belgium back on the European map as one of the countries at the forefront in some subjects that, tomorrow, will create jobs! All you are proposing is the compression of spending and savings on the back of the most vulnerable.

There is – at least that’s what I’ve always understood – a more social sensitivity within your party, which is not expressed in any way in the framework of the government agreement or in the daily work of the Finance Committee. I mean, as proof, the lack of efforts in the fight against tax evasion and all these tax tourists. Furthermore, in the Social Affairs Committee, you accept, step by step, everything that weakens our social protection model, which, however, is one of the greatest stabilizers in economic matters in the crisis we know as a result of the financial scandals.

I would like to tell you, Mr. Van Rompuy, don’t be blind. On the contrary, wake up! I like Eric Van Rompuy who resists the majority dynamic within this government and who raises the questionable elements, ⁇ in budgetary matters! I do not meet you today with your freedom of speech and I am disappointed because I was looking forward to this debate on the budget adjustment.

Mr. Van Rompuy, you mentioned the National Bank’s report, of which you cited a few figures, in the meantime quite correct.

You were one of the first to raise the problem before even the National Bank did. The latter only confirmed what you said in one of your writings on the internet.

According to the National Bank, by 2020, 6.6 billion euros would be lacking to finance the tax shift. You who have the sense of the state, what do you think of this situation? Do you think it is reasonable to give public finances a budget deficit such as this as a prospect in the context of a tax reform? Do you think this is acceptable?

Mr. Speaker, I think I should replicate what colleague Gilkinet recently cited in addition to the statement of colleague Van Rompuy.

It is not that nothing is done for those who are at the bottom of society. On the contrary, colleague Gilkinet. You know – we must emphasize this again and again – that the wealth envelope is paid in its entirety, that we do something about the lowest benefits and the lowest wages, that much has been done about raising the living wage. In absolute figures, these may not be very large amounts, but the living wage is increased by 800 euros per person on an annual basis. If you say that we do nothing for that group of society, that is completely wrong. However, there is a real effort to increase the purchasing power of the least-earned and the lowest-income, not only of beneficiaries, but also of the wage-takers.

Many of the tax shift measures are specifically aimed at the lowest wages. Many investments from that tax shift in lower wage loans are just focused on the lower wages in order to provide as much job creation as possible. If you say that we do not take this into account, it is completely against the numbers and the facts in.

Moreover, as colleague Van Rompuy has said, the National Bank’s report once again confirms – which was last year, but it is ⁇ this year – that purchasing power does not decrease. On the contrary, the expectation is that purchasing power will rise, not only for the average Belgian, but also for those sitting at the bottom of society.

So don’t come again and again with your story that we don’t do anything on that side.

Mr. Speaker, I think that Mrs. Smaers has answered clearly; I can add nothing to this.

The speaker should be given the opportunity to speak.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot let go of the false analysis of Ms. Smaers and of the whole CD&V. When one decides on an increase in VAT, when one decides on measures that will make justice less accessible, when one decides to shrink in a linear way in public services, it is the most fragile who pay. This majority decided on an index jump that applied to all workers and social benefits. This has been partially compensated for some social benefits but not for others, and it strikes them very hard because we are talking about families for which every euro counts at the end of the month. When you deprive them of an adjustment of their income to the evolving cost of living, you simply prevent them from finishing the month properly.

As for the measure of the tax shift, I demonstrated it when it was discussed here in December, it does not focus on the lowest incomes. All studies, including those of the IRES of the Catholic University of Louvre, show that if there had been a concentration of reductions of social contributions on the lowest wages, which has not been done, we would have had a much higher multiplier effect. Creating jobs is good! I also look forward to the fact that there are more jobs but this job creation must be put in view of the total cost, and in particular the social cost, the tax shift. The cost per job created is ⁇ high and this cost is even higher for the most fragile social categories. In this, you miss the target you claim to want to prioritize by paying attention to the most fragile. Madame Smaers, I have to contradict you, I am sorry.

I will not charge all these figures, but the living wage increases by 6% in one year period and the minimum pensions by 4%.

Mr. Calvo, I advise you to read numbers instead of debiting slogans. The living wages and minimum pensions are increasing. The net salary of an average two-earner in this country rises between 65 euros and 84 euros. You can find that little, but these are numbers.

I am challenged to say something about the budget. This really causes us to worry, it causes us all to worry.

I would like to comment on a number. Van Rompuy, who talks to us about a 6% increase in social benefits, if I’m not mistaken.

The living wages.

Income from integration. When you say 6%, I think you are referring to the increase that there has been of the 2% Welfare Envelope. Is it that?

It is funded at $900 million.

This is the social correction of the tax shift and the passage of the pivot index that took place this month. I think that’s where you find your 6 percent. Is this how they disintegrate? Do you no longer know it very well?

I give you the figures as I found them in the explanation of the budget control; they contain the numbers that I assume are correct.

You can take 3 times 2%, this is 6%. But you still have to remove the 2% index jump. There are still 4 percent. And you cannot count as an increase in purchasing power the passage of the pivot index, which is simply an adaptation to the rise in prices. So you are left with 2%, which corresponds to the Welfare Envelope, which is a measure that has existed for a long time and cannot be claimed to be a measure of this government.

Finally, of your 6%, there is 0%, Mr. Van Rompuy.

Mr. Van Hees, I will not discuss economics with you, because for you all wages must almost double, all public spending must rise, the banks must be nationalized, the companies must be nationalized, we must leave Europe. You are very popular in Wallonia because nobody contradicts you, but on me that makes no impression.

What is your alternative? Without competitiveness ? No recovery of public finances? What is your alternative?

I hear your pirouette when you are in trouble on those 6% which are actually 0%, to try to postpone the debate; I take note of this, Mr. Van Rompuy.

It takes much more to destabilize me than an intervention of mr. Van Hees, Mr the President.

We are concerned about the budget and I think the whole Parliament agrees on this. We had thought that the sanitation would be faster, but due to the slow economic growth and the asylum crisis, the pace of the sanitation is lower than what we had anticipated. Between 2012 and 2015, the structural balance improved by a small 3 billion euros. According to all possible reports from, among other things, the Court of Auditors, the National Bank or the Planning Bureau, we still have to work hard to reach a structural balance in 2019. We are talking about 8 billion euros. This is a heavy task.

The current budgetary control provided a number of opportunities to increase revenue: the Kaimantax, the institutional real estate funds, the diamond tax, the fiscal regularization, the speculation tax. Obviously, the revenue from it still needs to be realized. The Minister of Finance also said in his response that there are a number of points of uncertainty, because it is about capital taxes of which one often does not know what the ultimate return will be. Think only of the discussion about the Kaimantax and tax regularization. It will also not be obvious to obtain predetermined revenues from a property tax, whether it be a property gain tax or a value added tax. This is specific to this type of taxation.

It remains a problem, Mr. Laauouej. I do not deny it! There is also the problem that revenue in the first four months is about 1 billion euros behind on schedule, but it may be that this decreases in the second half of the year due to some technical elements, which the Minister of Finance has already cited. In short, there remains great uncertainty about the revenue from the measures taken and due to the spontaneous evolution, namely at the amount of EUR 1.5 billion. Everything can turn out good or bad. We will see that in the coming months. It is also important that we adopt all measures as soon as possible.

The Property Fund will be discussed in the committee next week. In the Tax Program Act, there are also some elements of the Kaiman and Diamond Taxes, and tax regulation is also coming back. Capital taxes remain risk taxes. This will also be the case in the future.

In short, we will have to repair further. Our group remains of the view that we need to find a balance in 2018-2019. Whether it’s nominal or structural, that’s still to be discussed. Anyway, that will require a lot of effort. The figures are inevitable. Eight billion euros, or roughly 2% of GNI, are needed in order to reach a balance in 2019.

This will require effort, both on the expenditure side and on the revenue side. For the 2017 budget, we need 3 billion euros. There will have to be spending cuts and there should be no taboos.

Income from other sources than labour must also be sought. Last year we put value added tax on the table. That proposal was not stopped.

Ms. Kitir, fair taxation is an important point for us and we will also emphasize it in the budget talks. I see that in the other parties, but we do not stick to a formula.

The dual income tax is one of the possibilities, but that is a very broad concept. It is almost a container concept. It covers all income from assets: both interest, dividends, rent, realised surplus values on assets, on movable and immovable assets, the real rent income.

There are many aspects to that. We expect the Minister of Finance to formulate a number of proposals in these areas, with regard to the wealth tax in the broad sense of the word, which will include an aspect of fair fiscality in the 3 billion package.

It is, of course, not, as it is now suggested, about the small homeowner, the SME or the one who added value to the sale of his business; all that comes out above 1 million euros can be negotiated, but all that remains below it is not.

There are also the owners of a second home. There are so many aspects of a property gain tax. This should be considered in the government. The sensitivities are often different.

I think we are now in front of a wall. We need to find 3 billion in 2017 and 8 billion. Therefore, in addition to structural savings, we will have to look for new incomes. It remains a heavy task. Our group will approve this budget adjustment, but the road is still long, Mr. Cheron. There are no alternatives.

Ecolo is talking about reducing working hours and raising taxes by 8 billion, but these are not alternatives, because they do not save the competitiveness. We seek the difficult path that consists in implementing expenditure savings that are socially fair in the long term, and seeking new incomes that take into account everyone’s sustainability. This is the difficult path that the government is taking. As Chairman of the Committee on Finance and Budget, I am a critical observer. Mr. Calvo, I also dare to say what it is about. We must go for solutions and they are not found with slogans or cheap solutions, which are nonexistent.

Mr Van Rompuy, allow me to interrupt you for a moment.

I find it very difficult when you talk about the difficult path that the government is choosing. Do you know who is struggling, who is worthy of praise here today, and whom we should thank on our bare knees? These are all those workers who work in the sweat for our country. That is the part-time working mother, whose income you have drastically reduced. Those are the people who have to work longer from the government, but don’t get any perspective on workable work. From Mr. Peeters, they may exchange holidays within the framework of his plan “Workable and Agile Work”. Those people have difficulty. However, do not come here with the poor Mr. Van Overtveldt, the poor Mrs. Wilmès, who must take such a difficult path. That is bullshit, that is nonsense.

Mr. Van Rompuy, you tell us that we will still need to make efforts and that billions of savings will need to be made. This is not a very joyful prospect that you are announcing to us. Indeed, for someone who has a parliamentary income like you, this does not pose a problem but it is another thing for the small people. You who have a great experience of the political world and especially of CD&V, you know who said, and in which year: "I see the end of the tunnel. Soon we will get out of the tunnel.” Do you know who said this?

by Wilfried Martens.

Yes, and do you remember when it was? Do you see the right-wing policy you are pursuing? That was the time of the 1980s. We are still in the tunnel. We have not gone out yet! You tell us that we need to make an effort of 8 billion euros and that we will get out of the tunnel.

Mr. Van Hees, if you talk about history, I am the only one who has experienced the year 1985. CD&V won the election with the slogan “The End of the Tunnel”. Wilfried Martens then formed a government with Guy Verhofstadt. The budget deficit that amounted to 15 % of GDP – now we are talking about 2 % – has been reduced to 7 % in the Martens-Verhofstadt government. Inflation was higher in the early 1980s. There was a devaluation and the index jump was developed. Employment grew dramatically between 1987 and 1988. The Socialists came into the government, the return of the heart. Mrs. Onkelinx was here at the time.

The reversal that Martens achieved remained preserved. Also in the 1990s there was a huge development of the economy and of employment. Through these measures, the three index leaps in the 1980s and the efforts to repair the public finances, Belgium has been saved in part. It was the period of devaluation, of the closure of the major national sector companies such as Cockerill-Sambre. There was a significant loss of employment in the five national sectors. Through that turnaround that was made in 1985 and which CD&V has been the engine with, we have ultimately saved the economy.

Now we are once again facing a difficult challenge. Everyone – I’m not talking about socialists, liberals or nationalists – should do the same. There are no ten ways in the coming years to create jobs, sanitize public finances, renovate the economy, and so on. That is a difficult path. This is not done with slogans and ⁇ not with a return to Marxism as you advocate it, with the nationalization of everything, or with the thought that one can do it only by taxing a few people while stimulating the entire economy. Mr Van Hees, I will not repeat it ten times, but save us from your alternative.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. and Mr. Ministers, dear colleagues, we have today to support and approve the bill on the adjustment of the budget of the Roads and Means and of the general budget of expenditure 2016. This moment is important.

I would like to tell you that the MR group welcomes the agreement reached within the government because it is the result of serious, credible work, which combines the imperatives of the government and those of the European institutions. We maintain the goal of re-balancing in 2018 and try to comply with the 2016-2019 Stability Pact.

This adjustment constitutes the DNA of the government, which combines two objectives from the beginning: on the one hand, the sanitation of our public finances and, on the other, the primary focus on employment, purchasing power, anti-fraud and strengthening security despite the difficult context and the world economy in difficulty.

The government’s approach in this exercise was consistent and voluntary, because in addition to the budget adjustment, it decided to go further in structural reforms through an ambitious change of the labour market, an intensification of the fight against fraud and a fight against certain harmful behaviors.

The European Commission – excuse me, but I’m a little cold – has confirmed the positive impact of the structural reforms implemented in terms of pensions, taxes and employment policy. It also confirmed that it expects an improvement in business in 2017 and highlighted the expected progress in the competitiveness of companies through the initiatives that have been taken. We believe that the government is on the right track.

Of course, my colleague Ahmed Laaouej noted this, but this is perfectly normal, the Court of Auditors has undertaken a critical and accurate exercise of expenditure and revenue, as well as measures affecting them. It is happy and healthy; the Court of Auditors is there for that. She highlighted the uncertainty of the results of some new measures; this is true, but they are difficult to estimate because we do not yet know all of their operational aspects.

All this is normal because the budget is also an ambition, it is a line drawn, it is a goal and a will expressed. This is not an account, it is a budget. Beyond these few reservations, the Court, rightly, makes clearly positive remarks, Mrs. Minister of Budget. She insists on the fact that the drafting of the budget documents has entered into a positive evolution, that there has been a good collaboration with the SPF Budget and the SPF Finance. They say they are better informed. His comments are, in consequence, much more accurate and pointed than in the past. It also perceives positive margins in both revenue underestimation and expenditure overestimation. The Court notes that there are also far fewer mentions of insufficient credits.

Every time things get a little better. Everyone is perfectionable and the work can be more and more accurate. I think the Minister of Budget has shown all his qualities, all his mastery of the subject.

Through this serious and balanced agreement, we must highlight some important elements of which we can only rejoice: labour income and benefits are preserved, no new tax on employment and citizens’ purchasing power, strengthening structural measures (employment, pensions, unavailability on the labour market), ⁇ ining the objectives set within the tax shift with a strengthening of workers’ purchasing power that will be implemented gradually, Mr. Laaouej, and of course continue to create jobs.

Just a question, Mr. Piedboeuf, do you consider that increases in VAT and excise taxes are not taxes that have an impact on purchasing power? You have to explain it to me because I am no longer there.

On the one hand, it depends on how they are targeted. When it comes to increasing excise taxes, certain behaviors are targeted. On the other hand, of course, the increase in purchasing power is made by the difference between revenues that are actually increases of certain small items and what falls into the pocket of the citizen thanks to the tax shift that you will see progressing as you go. by Mr. Van Rompuy once again demonstrated this.

There are also measures to combat tax fraud. A total of 65 million euros is expected. You say that’s not enough. We hope for much more, of course, but it is necessary to remain modest in its forecasts, while having much larger goals and it is necessary to know that, in the first four months of 2016, you have seen, the fight against tax fraud produces much more income than in previous years, since in four months, we achieved revenues that are equivalent to a full year, 2015 for example, or even 2013.

Minister Van Overtveldt recalled that the recovery rate and the number of files handled by the ISI was rising. The records have even been broken in a number of cases. All these good statistics were made possible because the government invested, of course, in the fight against tax fraud with, as we know, the recruitment of new agents, additional management personnel, more resources devoted to studies and the use of the most advanced technologies.

And in the coming weeks, we will see the implementation of twelve new measures aimed at fighting tax fraud. On the other hand, we are all concerned and we have all demonstrated yesterday, at the Panama Papers Commission, our willingness to fight tax evasion at the same time. We all agree that fighting fraud is easy. But fighting the escape, it still requires a little more finger and work. We also saw a new demonstration yesterday that no one did anything. Since no one has done anything, we will have to take care of it and manage to avoid this kind of behavior.

I would like to remind you that this policy is already being implemented, with 90,000 companies established in 2015. This is a record for ten years. The number of bankrupts is at its lowest since 2008. The unemployment rate is at its lowest in 25 years. The disability rate will be lowered for the first time in 25 years. We also talked recently about the forecasts of the BNB and the forecasts of the Plan Bureau that announce the creation of jobs.

As you said, there are a lot of things that need to be considered, but the world has changed as well. Growth has changed. There have been dramatic elements that slow down a whole host of parameters. Therefore, creating jobs in this difficult context is a very positive element. Of course, the work is not over. That’s why my group encourages the government to continue implementing structural reforms to revitalize our economy and continue to create jobs to sustain our social security while ⁇ ining the budget for 2018.

With this budget control, the 2016 budget remains on the rails and our government keeps the way. It respects its European commitments and ensures the credibility of our country. The times are tough and difficult, but the path taken will make our future and that of the younger generations, safer. We must collectively, all parties confused, all levels of power confused, have the courage of true and lasting solidarity.

The MR Group will therefore support these budget adjustments and will continue to support this voluntary policy. Mr Laououej, I am glad that you are delighted with this.

Mr. Speaker, there is no need for much further explanation when I say that the context in which work needs to be done is ⁇ difficult and challenging. I’m talking about the international context: the backward growth in China, the uncertainty about the Brexit referendum, the outcome of which is known, but there is still not much certainty and the approach to the referendum was not too good. Growth is not attracting enough in Europe, which is why the European Central Bank ⁇ ins its policy of negative interest rates. The international context is therefore ⁇ difficult and the open Belgian economy suffers the consequences very directly.

In addition, our starting point, when we entered the government, was also not so positive. Belgium is a country with a very high debt. We left with a very high debt and a very large deficit. When the government took office, the government spent 12 billion euros more each year than it received. This cannot normally be ⁇ ined for too long. In addition, there was also a very high government seizure, which was somewhat above 50%, with the highest burdens that can be found.

Nevertheless, in this ⁇ difficult international and national context, in those few years, the government succeeds in presenting a very good report. We left with a historically high number of bankruptcies and today we have a historically high number of startups. While we experienced a huge job loss in the private sector, today we have new jobs again: 65 000 new jobs have been created. The National Bank predicts an increase in job creation in the private sector. By 2018, 181 000 additional jobs should be created. This is an immense achievement, especially in this context. The unemployment rate decreases and the employment rate rises.

People see the result today. Before taking office, we had said that difficult efforts would be required and that they are indeed required. It is said that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and we can see it today. While spending income has declined in the previous legislature, it has already increased by 1.2% this year. That will also have consequences. People will spend a little more, and consumption will attract again.

The biggest challenge is of course the budget. I said it, we left with a situation where the government spent 12 billion more than it received, every year again. Last year we lost 0.5% of GDP. We will also reduce the structural balance by 0.6% this year. Again, the difference is huge. A beautiful achievement. Of course, there are still a lot of challenges.

Mr. Dedecker, I hear you referring to a huge achievement and a beautiful report. However, I do not understand exactly where this beautiful report comes from. You refer to the fact that the state debt here is historically high. That is correct. This debt has only increased since the arrival of this government. According to the latest Eurostat figures, we have a public debt of 106 % of GDP. If we can believe the IMF’s outlook for 2016, that public debt will not decrease in the coming years either with this policy. At the end of Michel I, according to the IMF’s economic forecast, that government debt would be as high as or ⁇ even higher than under the government-Di Rupo. You also referred to the structural balance. This is worse than last year. The budget deficit is by 2.8% even worse than last year. At that time it was 2.6%. You look suspicious, but these are figures from the European Commission from May 2016. I wonder what this beautiful report is about. It is, of course, not difficult to do better than the previous government. That you can present a better report than the previous government is not difficult. However, this does not mean that it is a good and good report. If one comes out of such a bad situation, the employment of course increases. Today, however, it is still a fact that only in Greece, Italy and Spain there are proportionally fewer people working than here. So now to speak of an enormous achievement and a beautiful report: I find that at least exaggerated.

Mrs. Pas, you have cited a number of different things. On the latter I will ⁇ come back, but I will start with your numbers; I wonder where you get those numbers from. The National Bank has just confirmed that the government debt in Belgium is falling. It has now fallen once thanks to the repayment of KBC’s loans, but it has been predicted that it will continue to decline in the coming years as well.

In connection with your last comment, on today’s report that there are no places outside Italy and Greece where there are as few people working as in Belgium: that is indeed a huge challenge, which we have begun. Getting more people to work and keeping them working longer is definitely the main goal of this government.

There are indeed challenges at this point. One-third of the pension rights you build up are built on periods when you are not at work. That is an inheritance, that is unacceptable, that is not the way we should go on. More people working longer is the big ambition.

We also succeed in that. I just gave the numbers of job creation. We succeed in keeping people working longer, we have made a huge reform there with the pension reform. And that pays, thanks to that reform, the costs of aging have been halved in the long run. They are half, Mrs. Pas. This is one of the great achievements we can offer. This is also internationally recognized. I am not here to shake anything out of my sleeve, that is internationally recognized, the European Commission and the European Council confirm that too. Just thanks to that reform, just thanks to the pressure of that aging cost, yet it is a problem no. 1 in the previous legislature, just as the European Commission lowers its medium-term objectives for Belgium.

We had to make a surplus on our budget to cope with the cost of ageing. This goal has now been reduced by the European Commission to a balance, a balance is enough. We are not going to be content with this, we are still going for a surplus. You can see that these efforts are internationally recognized. There is light at the end of the tunnel. We already see that it is worthwhile.

Last year there was a discussion on the first reports of the Monitoring Committee. The opposition said here that we could no longer give new burden reductions to employers without steel-hard guarantees, without a contract with that employer that he would create jobs in exchange for them.

We all know that this is obviously not possible. It cannot be done in this way. Today, however, we see that the reduction of the burden on labour, also one of Belgium’s biggest problems, has an effect.

We are seeing more recruitments today. We are seeing a record number of first recruitments. We see a sharp increase in jobs in general and a record number of startups. We see there again that the government was right by the facts and the opposition was wrong.

It was also called out that there was a gap of more than 2 billion euros in the budget and that there would be a social massacre. Fortunately, I did not see any. Thanks to the cautious policy, by working with buffers, only an adjustment of 680 million euros was needed, in line with the adjustments in the past.

In the past, greater challenges have been faced with budgetary control. Again, that budgetary control is now successfully completed, not as in the past with a new round of tax increases, ⁇ not with tax increases on the cap of the working man, but by obtaining income from charges on environmental pollution, from a bank tax, from wealth. Income from labour is absolutely saved. This is again a very good achievement.

What is not sufficiently highlighted here, which is not immediately mentioned in the budget itself but was part of the budgetary control, is, of course, the fight against fraud.

Fighting fraud is right. Society no longer accepts that an ordinary working man is plainly burdened because there are still people lying through the mazes of the net. We do not accept this, neither does this government.

Therefore, we were able to take no less than ten measures in a year. That is more than in the previous legislature. Now it is about ten measures in a year. You will see that of the 50 pages of the program law, which was approved in the committee last week and which will soon be on the agenda of the plenary session, as many as 45 pages come from the fraud prevention cell.

That is a beautiful realization, a nice strong effort that also brings results. We have also seen that the efforts of the past year have yielded results. In four months, this year was collected as much as before in a full year. We can also be proud of a great achievement.

We save who works, saves and entrepreneurs and we get the money where it is, from the fraudsters. We reduce the burden on labor. We create jobs. There is light at the end of the tunnel. We cannot repeat it enough. It will only get better. This is the only way forward for a sustainable recovery of the country, for the competitiveness and prosperity of our society.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, the budget control we are talking about today was a difficult exercise that the government was facing: it was necessary to seek as much as 2.2 billion euros. That is a ⁇ high amount, but not exceptional: in 2013 the government had to look for 2.8 billion, so things are not so new.

Secondly, I think there is insufficient support that this had to happen in a ⁇ difficult context. What happened on March 22 in our country has literally changed our country. Not only mentally, it has also had economic consequences. If one finds that, for example, VAT receipts in April decreased by €155 million compared to 2015, and if one sees that advance payments counteract, also due to the crisis that emerged, by €154 million, then it is quickly clear why one had to eventually look for such amounts. The director of the National Bank has indicated himself that these attacks have hampered our economy by about 0.1%, or 400 million euros.

Colleagues, it would be wrong to blame the counterproductive budget figures solely because of these attacks. In other words, the effort that had to be made by the government, the adjustment, was considerable. I must say that the government has dealt with this in an excellent way.

However, even after this check, the road to a balanced budget is unfortunately still very long. The estimates of the European Union, the Planning Bureau and the National Bank range between 8 and 9 billion. I must be honest, when I was Minister of Budget in Flanders we had a budget of 27 billion. In the meantime, it has become 37 billion. If one has to save 8 or 9 billion on such amounts, in a budget where the policy space is ⁇ limited, that is a very difficult exercise.

On the other hand, we cannot escape the fact that every euro debt we make must ever be paid by our children. I said earlier that I dreamed of being able to save my children that they should only talk about saving. That is the task that we all here together, majority and opposition, must take on us. We must ensure that this budget is balanced.

We must pay particular attention to the way we pursue this balance, as we must also take care of our economy and ensure that this budgetary approach does not hinder economic growth.

Contrary to what the budget suggests, our economy is doing well right now. She is fully recovering. This is reflected in a number of economic parameters.

Colleague Eric Van Rompuy has put some of them on the table. First, tens of thousands of additional jobs, but especially in the private sector. I think that’s the difference with the past: we’re not creating jobs in the public sector, but in the private sector. Second, the wage disability we are slowly eliminating, which is very important for the competitiveness of our companies. Third, the growth of corporate investment is now estimated at almost 4 % on an annual basis, which is more than positive. Fourth, our exports are increasing, and fifth, despite what is said, our purchasing power is actually increasing.

In other words, the outlook is positive. My group is convinced that this government is pursuing the right economic policy that we need today in Belgium and in Europe. It is based on reduced burdens for those who work, but also for those who give work. Per ⁇ this has been lost too much out of sight in the past. The result is what we accumulate: jobs, jobs, jobs. This is one of the most basic ways to ⁇ sustainable economic growth.

If we look at budgetary control – the Court of Auditors was critical, but that is also its role – we can find that, despite the fact that Europe allows us to keep provisions for asylum and migration and security out of the budget, the government has already included in its budget a number of spending that threatens to become structural through the system of phasing.

It is also important that the principle of the zero line, in which everyone would make the agreed effort, is carried out. This means that every minister must literally turn to his own door. In this way, we get a budget that can eventually survive the test of criticism.

Reforms of public pensions, the disability schemes as well as of the calculation basis of RVA and RIZIV benefits are absolutely necessary. Therefore, it is important that the current government carries out new and additional structural reforms to maintain budgetary objectives, both on the revenue and expenditure side.

It is important that we generate additional budget revenues through the bank tax, the new statute for real estate companies and excise duties in a thoughtful way. On the other hand, we also expect results from the fight against tax fraud. We also look at the results of the Panama Papers.

In addition, the government is also cutting on its spending. It has been mentioned here several times: also in the social security, Minister De Block provides structural efforts. She makes additional efforts for almost €170 million, but nevertheless keeps the patient’s invoice under control.

Minister De Croo proposes a framework for the sharing economy, which is a very innovative approach. We encourage entrepreneurship at the micro level. We do not do that to keep that entrepreneurship at the micro level. The intention is that it can eventually grow into full-fledged self-employed activities, which will ultimately be an important source for the economic motor in Belgium.

In addition to the fight against tax fraud, we must also continue the fight against social fraud and social dumping. The plan of Minister Borsus and Secretary of State Tommelein to address the problem of dispatch, the unauthorized dispatch of personnel and, above all, the apparent independence, should enable us to move to a sanitation. Our new secretary of state, Philippe De Backer, will take over this plan.

Of course, reforms in public servants’ pensions are extremely sensitive. In this regard, we must dare to draw right a number of shift breaks, such as the leave before retirement and the so-called sickness pension. In these matters, we must put a stake and stake. At the same time, we need to harmonize systems.

The labour market needs to be relaxed and flexible. As the mayor of a border municipality, I can determine with my own eyes what the impact of a too rigid labour market is: there are a lot of e-commerce activities developed just across the border with the Netherlands and every Saturday and Sunday we see Dutch postal companies in our municipality ride around. Therefore, we must try to regain jobs.

Mr. Minister, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, a budget is, for those who doubt it, more than a mere figure table of revenue and expenditure. A budget is primarily a lever to conduct policies, to conduct economic policies, to be able to stimulate. I note that this government, with this budgetary control, holds on to the recovery agreements made with Europe, and that is ⁇ important. But I also note that this government, in one move, gives the revival of the economy an additional impetus with its reforms. That is why it deserves a distinction.

Colleagues, it is a question of finding the right balance in the coming months and years, the checks and balances between two goals, on the one hand, sanating and on the other hand creating the economic relance. It is a little water and fire to reconcile with each other. There are less successful examples in the European Union, but I think this government takes responsibility. We wish this government success with this budget control, which we will gladly support.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I am going to address a few issues that I regret to note that we have already regularly discussed.

Collega Van Rompuy said at the end of his argument that there is no alternative, that it is the only way. I would like to remind you that at the time this government came with the tax shift, we supported all proposals to reduce the burden for companies, but also for the taxpayers. In other words, that is a good thing in view of the goal this government has set for itself, namely the creation of jobs. If people knock on the chest today and say that jobs have been created and that the prospects are good, I can only support that. It should still be missing, I dare say, with all that has happened, that we should come to the conclusion today that no jobs would be created.

We then voted against what funded those jobs, the burden reduction. This is a discussion we have been conducting for two years.

Colleague Van Rompuy, last week we again presented our alternatives in your committee. We have submitted to you to approve the value added tax. You just said that you put that VAT on the government table last year, that you did not get it and that you will put it again this year. However, when it can be voted on it here in Parliament, it is voted away without discussion, because it is not worth discussing it.

The second proposal we submitted last week is the minimum tax for multinational companies. Today it is 5%, and in our opinion it may be more, namely 10%. This is still much lower than the tax imposed on SMEs. It is also voted out by CD&V without discussion.

Colleagues, and colleagues from CD&V in particular, I would like to point out that there are alternatives regarding the financing of the burden reductions. You do not want to see these alternatives or do not want to approve them. In the backroom of the government, you apparently put them on the table, but we cannot control that. What we always find out is that there is nothing in that back room of what CD&V likes to pack out on the public forum.

In my first point, therefore, I regret the way in which the tax shift choices were made. I think it could have been fairer. In fact, it is our conviction that the burden of financing the tax shift falls primarily on the shoulders of the ordinary people in our country.

Now I come to my second point, and that point concerns the confusion continuously ⁇ ined in Parliament by the majority, about higher net wages. We do not argue that net wages are higher. That was the commitment, the burden reduction that we approved.

However, this does not mean that people now have a higher available income. Consider all bill increases at the federal and Flemish level. Colleague Van Rompuy, you can deny the daylight, but I really meet no one who says that compared to two years ago, after paying his fixed expenses, at the end of the month he has more to spend on expenses of his own choice. To be honest, I do not meet such a person. That people retain net more after the tax measures, I agree with this, at least with regard to some groups, because the pensioners are not eligible for this, since the burden reductions do not apply to them. But about the net available income at the end of the month, I think there is no discussion; it is clear and clear that people have declined on it. You may continue to deny it, but you actually deny the light of the sun. The man and woman in the street feel it completely different.

The third point is a point that the majority should be concerned about. The first two points are rather ideological differences between us. In my third point, I would like to point out – which colleague Van Rompuy pointed out in part – that we find that the figures in the initial budget for 2016 are simply not correct.

It is mainly about the income side, for which Minister Van Overtveldt is responsible. For the 2016 budget, tax receipts were overestimated by almost 700 million, making budget control a very heavy exercise after just one and a half months. The kaaimantaks would raise 460 million, but according to its own administration — not according to the sp.a and not according to the opposition — this is utopian. Nevertheless, the minister, this majority, writes that again in the budget: 460 million; utopian, according to the own administration! The corporate tax on the intercommunales is challenged before the Constitutional Court. The diamond tax is still in charge of the Economic Commission. The real estate control would raise 250 million, but we have not yet seen a text on this in Parliament. In the meantime, the alcohol tax appears to have failed because people go shopping across the border. On the speculation tax, the minister himself says that it has failed. The Constitutional Court will decide on the fiscal regularization as soon as it is approved here; this has been indicated, both by Brussels and by the Waals Region. Also on the VAT on online gambling, procedures have been announced before the Constitutional Court.

In other words, the budget for 2016 is not correct in the figures. This majority always boasts that they are preparing the future, but they are digging a pit for the next generations! When I think of the rearrangement, control and adjustment of the budget, which we see today... I have always learned that when drawing up a budget, the precautionary principle is important. This means generally overestimating spending a little and trying to underestimate income a little. Well, in this budget, revenue is drastically overestimated. However, this is laughed at, saying that the economic outlook is fantastic. However, the invoice that one does not want to pay today and leaves behind will, of course, be presented again in the coming years. Again, one refuses to see reality.

Is the SPA of the opinion that the budget in 2019 should be balanced? The whole discussion is now about the sanitation project, but is the SPA of the opinion that we should have a balanced budget in 2019?

The [...]

Mrs. Kitir, you are here to make all sorts of criticisms. I also look at a number of things critically, but the goal of this government is to ⁇ a structural balance in 2019. Two points of GDP need to be found to ⁇ that. That is about 8 billion. Do the Sp.a., Mrs. Kitir and Mr. Vanvelthoven, think that this is the goal? Are you ready to take measures to ⁇ that recovery objective in 2019? This is a very concrete question.

Madame Onkelinx, the question is for you too.

The [...]

Whether it will be in 2018 or 2019, I will not comment on that. There is the nominal balance and the structural balance, a structural balance in 2018 and a nominal balance in 2019. No matter how you turn it or turn it, 8 billion must be found. Whether that money is to be found in two years or in three years, it doesn’t matter to me. This means that in 2017 an effort of 3 billion euros is actually to be made. Mrs. Kitir, do you agree with this? Do you think we need to repair more? Mr. Calvo, the question is also for you. I am asking this question to the whole opposition.

As long as you don’t have to answer, of course. You deny the figures.

You have managed to destabilize yourself. You are asking the opposition a question that you do not know the answer to. That is a very funny scene. Mr Vanvelthoven, what will it be, 2018, 2019? And then you get the question looked back and you say you will see. Of course, that was not the most ingenious political move. A bit of a strange way of working, but it’s the highlight of this meeting so far. For what thank you.

2018, 2019 and 2019. I would like to discuss in a year, the nominal or structural balance. We are now on a good 10 billion to call it so. Do you think we need to go to balance, or do you, as some economists say, think that this is nonsense, that we should not do that effort and that a balance in the budget is not needed? Choose to choose. Mr. Calvo, you of the younger generation, do you think we should ⁇ a balance in 2018-2019? Do you find it necessary?

We think that striving for a balance is indeed important, but what we...

and striving? The European Greens view this as deflation. They are against the Maastricht standards and even against the 3% standard.

What we are experiencing today is the worst of two worlds. I will explain myself further, Mr Van Rompuy. On the one hand, you do not get the budget in order and, on the other hand, it is not invested. This is the worst of two worlds. Neither with one, nor with the other, you will be successful. I have here on my paper for later a note on the recent study of the OECD. There is hardly any public investment. Nevertheless, you will not get the budget in order. That is a terribly negative spiral, which is not pleasant. It does not “build” things. If one would talk about shifting the balance in time, it is not because Mr. Van Overtveldt cannot do his homework. For me no additional deficits because the tax revenue is not properly managed. If you move, it is to invest. What happens today? The budget balance is not within reach, the budget is not in order and at the same time it is not invested. At least this is a situation we are suited to.

Mr. Speaker, I have a very interesting question. We could actually hold a meeting in the Finance Committee to hear the economists you refer to who think austerity policy is counterproductive, especially when it relies on cuts in budgets allocated to public services and social security, when it raises taxes on consumption. This could be a very interesting debate.

I want to ask you a very simple question, Mr. Van Rompuy. Who dug up the budget hole? Who hasn’t half-funded the tax shift with the prospect of a shortage of more than 6 billion euros by 2020 that I reminded you? Who dug the budget hole?

It is easy to ask questions. But from the moment we have created the problem ourselves, we cannot claim to bring solutions, which is why I understand your embarrassment.

The [...]

This is normal, Mr. Calvo. From optimism and willpower, we know at least what we want!

I simply notice that no one answers Mr. Mr.’s question. by Van Rompuy. You answer with questions, but you have no solution to offer. You cannot both proceed to fiscal consolidation and create jobs, develop the competitiveness of companies.

There is no other solution, you can say whatever you want! You do not answer the question.

The (...)

We know the alternatives of the Ecolo! (The Protests )

Mr. Pietro, I invite you to continue your speech.

Do you not think that we are convinced that public investments are needed? The whole of Europe says it. The whole world says that public investments are needed. But we must have the means to invest and we must not make holes all the time. You need to buy them before investing. We are serious managers. This principle also applies in municipalities. You cannot spend money that you do not have.

Thank you, Mr President.

I have not yet stated a sentence and you are already drawing conclusions.

If we were invited to the government table, we would have followed the path that Europe prescribes to move toward balance. That is ready and clear.

The question arises whether a budget balance is possible by 2018-2019. With the measures that this government has taken so far and which do nothing, I would like to see again how you will do it.

I hear a lot of speech here. It is ignored that the tax revenues, which are essential for reaching that balance, are undermeasurable every year. I have just listed a dozen of those measures, which are registered in the budget but do not contribute. It is not yet known whether they are still in the Constitutional Court or in Europe. Therefore, it cannot be continued.

Despite the fact that the Monitoring Committee has thrown out a number of issues, this government is re-engaging them. This is not a proper fiscal policy. And then you have the courage to ask us whether we want a budget balance by 2019. Put things in order yourself.

Mr. Van Rompuy, if we had been in this government, we would have taken a number of measures from the beginning. I just listed them. These are measures that you say in public that you are in favour of, but you always reject in Parliament and in the government. Apparently they are put on the table over and over again, but they never get it.

If these measures had been introduced, we could have reached a budgetary balance. Otherwise we would have stood further than today.

I would like to conclude with a question to Minister Van Overtveldt. Not the question of what he will do with all those measures that bring nothing, because I expect little or nothing from it.

However, I would like to comment on a comment by Mr Van Rompuy, who said here just that CD&V expects a proposal from the Minister of Finance on the VAT and the asset gain tax. Will you come up with a proposal? I am curious and your CD&V colleagues are also curious.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I will try to keep it brief, but I ⁇ did not want to miss this memorable and dynamic debate, so I would also like to take the floor on behalf of our group. Later, my dear colleague Georges Gilkinet will continue.

First of all, I would like to remind you that a budget adjustment not only serves as a reminder, but also as an opportunity to update. The members of the majority have debited their figures. These figures come back regularly: the private job creation, the consumer confidence, the number of startups and the number of bankruptcies.

The purchasing power.

This is the point, Mr Van Rompuy.

There are always some positive indicators.

I would also like to remind you that not so long ago, after five hundred days of the Michel government, we had drawn up a report on the pros and cons. I note that to date, only the indicators that look a little more positively attract the attention of this majority, while the many warnings and even negative elements are ignored. This adjustment also does not lead to an adjustment, and I regret it.

For example, the decline in effectiveness. Even today, the Planning Bureau published a study on the social indicators, which showed everything but pink eyes. Economic growth is slower than in the rest of Europe. Recently, the OECD also published a study on the huge decline in the number of investments. Of course, I also mention our country’s environmental report. We are not only in a post-Panama society and world, but also post-Paris, with the climate agreement. But we have neither a minister, nor a government, nor a budget, nor a budget adjustment that anticipates steps in that regard.

Mr. Minister and colleagues of the majority, I would like to encourage you not to look for excuses to clarify those indicators. So today you don’t have to worry about Brexit or the impact of the attacks. It also has to do with the fact that the mayonnaise does not catch, because of the recipe you chose, with little investment, a lot of savings for people who work and a lot of savings for people who already have trouble. This is due to the fact that our economic engine is not really attractive, or at least less attractive than in the rest of Europe.

In the form of introduction.

Per ⁇ some more specific elements about budget adjustment. I have mentioned a lot in the committee. I will limit myself to four comments.

First, Mrs. Wilmès, you haven’t grown out of parliamentary membership for a very long time. Less than a year ago you succeeded Mr. Jamar, for whom a landing track was provided by this government, with the governorate. Not so long ago you were also a member of Parliament, and I regret somewhat that you also in the committee have taken little or no commitment to address the lack of transparency, which is becoming an increasing problem.

The Court of Auditors points to this. The Court of Auditors also sharpened its criticism. It has made the exercise: 1.6 billion euros of commissions and 1.1 billion euros of under-use make the budget much less readable. You hide your political choices. You take out the power of the legislator in this matter. This is my first point of criticism. I really appeal to your recent parliamentary past to ask you to update this. I assume that you are not long enough minister to send the tree into Parliament. You are not yet a year minister, so I would like to appeal to your recent past to urgently update this.

Second, I find it quite annoying that the government, in terms of figures on asylum and security, is not working on the latest estimates. I can’t call this a form of caution, as this falls outside the budget. I honestly do not understand that. This also contributes to the lack of transparency of this budget adjustment.

Third, and that is my horse. Our group has visited the Court of Auditors to collect the chips, and we have ⁇ exploded them regarding the Panama Measures. I remain very hungry, colleague Van Rompuy, if I find that the figure that is currently budgetarily supported and fixed is barely 7.8 million euros. I think colleague Dedecker talked about a toothbrush in terms of tax fraud and tax evasion. I am pleased that you have demonstrated the same persistence this week as colleague Almaci, for example, in pudding out the Optimadossier. Only, I do not see that tenacity when there are no socialists dealing with it.

The fight against tax fraud is just a thin beast. Again, in the budget adjustment, the Panama Measures are barely supported by 7.8 million euros.

Mr Van Rompuy, you continue to tolerate and accept that. You will continue to approve budget adjustments, where more is sought and achieved in people who are in difficulty and in people who are sick than in those who avoid taxes on the Panama Floor.

You knock no. I simply read from the fiches of the Court of Auditors and from the correspondence of the Cabinet of Mr Van Overveldt with the Court of Auditors. Only four chips of the measures are concerned. Only three chips have a substantiated and quantified budgetary impact for 2016. The main measure is a measure that gives agreement in 2017.

A fourth point of attention is also a point for Mr. Dedecker and the N-VA. That is the big farce of redesign.

Mr. Dedecker, you went to the elections with the Moesennorm. Your party chairman says to this day that the state is mud fat and that the euros are there to grasp.

Mr Van Rompuy, you also referred to it, though it is a little more nuanced. The freedom of speech is there for the majority members of Parliament mainly through blogs and much less in Parliament. However, you have also mentioned it.

The N-VA suggests that we need to save, that there is still plenty of space and that it is time for us to do so urgently. Meanwhile, the Minister of Public Service, Mr. Vandeput, has had a mandate for several months – he is not hindered by anyone – to save €100 million through modernisation, efficiency, digitalisation of the government and the bundling of public procurement.

Colleagues of the majority, that sum of 100 million euros is the best kept secret of the Wetstraat. It is a fair punishment that Mr. Vandeput can do that of you. The party of sanctions and savings has its own minister in the ranks that in this regard gets nothing on the tracks.

Mr. Dedecker, in fact, he spends more on consultants to enable that redesign than he can generate revenue through that redesign process. If André Flahaut or Jean-Marc Delizée had done so in their capacity as Minister of Public Affairs, or if Mrs. Onkelinx had done so in her capacity as Deputy Prime Minister, you would have convened a large press conference and asked an investigation committee for the consultants who hired socialist ministers, because those consultants would be more expensive than the savings they generate.

The cock would have been too small. Mr. Jambon was still there. Or maybe even Mr. Bracke. In fact, on this kind of thing he easily asked an actual question in the previous legislature. Siegfried Bracke had then stood here to say that it was an absolute shame, a socialist crap, to spend more on consultants than what those consultants earn. This is the water model. This is the re-design of Steven Vandeput.

The N-VA has been there for months at the buttons and it actually only helps more to the buttons. I find it really unfortunate because there are damn many, especially young officials, who crawl into an exercise like redesign. There are government agencies, FODs and PODs, who want to cooperate in this and who do not find an ally in this Minister of Public Officials. You front the eyebrows, Mr Van Rompuy. It is time for this Parliament to tell Mr. Vandeput that it is enough, that he is not a trainee and that it is time to “deliver”.

A Minister of Public Affairs who receives this assignment cannot simply arrive with an invoice of consultants. Or is it, Mr. Dedecker? Give them your most personal opinion. Do you think it is normal that we currently spend more on consultants than the story of redesign brings? Is that the power of change?

Mr Calvo, it’s a bit easy. We are in the last days of June. The amount entered in the budget for the redesign is an amount that we will collect at the end of December. Indeed, we are now making an investment and a number of modernisation operations that will bring us results by the end of December.

If you could say today that we’re going to spend more than we’re going to save, then I’d look for a different job, Mr. Calvo. As Madame Soleil, you can earn more.

So you will soon buy in the sold computers and in December they will generate millions of euros.

There were, I think, stronger ways to refute this problem. Now say that you will invest some more in June and July and that something in December will bring incredible money... the salaries are pleasant, but that is utopia.

If Flahaut or Daerden had said something like this in the previous legislature: we will invest in June and July and in December the administrations will generate millions of euros of savings, you would have attacked it frontally.

I do not even want to go so far. I have just been asking Steven Vandeput for months, very kindly, to put something on the table, to tell us what that redesign is, and to give the officials who want to collaborate on it that perspective.

Do you know what Mr. Vandeput’s answer is? There are two versions. A few weeks ago it sounded like he was not responsible for this. You should look at the organogram of the redesign, Mr. Van Overtveldt. The organogram of the club of redesign is more complex than the organogram of an average multinational. That is the efficiency and optimization of this majority, Mr. Dedecker. That is not serious.

I have been asking Vandeput for months to come up with concrete ideas and plans. At first he was not competent. The demon is not there. We recently held a hearing on this subject in the Committee on Internal Affairs during the Committee on Finance, which was all but optimal, Mr. Dedecker. We could not ask questions about the budget at that time because we were all in the Finance Committee.

Mr Demon, the strongholder of the Committee on Internal Affairs, has asked this question. Steven Vandeput has said he does not want to give any budget estimate about the redesign.

Mr. Calvo, the problem with you is that you always hold interesting statements, but you are skeptical of variable geometry. You just talked to us about the Panama case, about which much more revenue should be planned. When the journalists announced to us in the commission that they had numbered 750 cases of Belgians who had made themselves guilty of this or that, it was possible to observe, after a serious analysis of the ISI, that some had died, others had been recovered 100 times, others had already regularized their situation. Of these 750 cases, there are still 130 or even 140. In view of the above, you remain without reaction. You are not skeptical about the statements of journalists.

As for the redesign plan, you stick to a word that annoys you, but we presented a work plan. Officials are contributed and experts are accompanied. This is not forbidden! Do you want more examples? You are defending the PS. very well ! The alliance of the left with the communists is very good! But in reality, one cannot do a serious job without studying things finely. And if you think that in order to do this, you need to be advised, we do! We do it everywhere!

Mr. Pietro, the situation described by Mr. Pietro Calvo is even more serious than what he says! You have programmed 650 million in the budget as a re-design of the administration and no concrete plan has yet been submitted. I will repeat the words of Ms. Minister of Budget: "Six guidelines with subprojects. Meetings are planned to follow the routes. Are there measures already taken? I need to see Mr. Vandeput who, himself, returns to Mrs. Wilmes."All this was said in the commission. “Everything depends on the good will of the government.” In short, there is nothing! 650 million by the horizon 2019! You can add them to the 8 billion that the National Bank tells you!

Mr. President, Mr. Calvo asked me a question that I would like to address.

This government made certain agreements during the tax shift last year that must be honored. These agreements were also reaffirmed in the budgetary control.

If one wants to make savings in Public Services this year, then it will undoubtedly not be possible otherwise than with left and right quick wins, but rather with the start of structural measures, so that when they are in full course will pay the higher amounts on the terms by 2020, as set out in the agreements on the tax shift.

Colleague Calvo, with regard to the consultants, we do not need special committees or research committees. There were once great ambitions in regards to the reform of the administration. I was in the opposition then and I said the same thing as you say now. We say that again today. You referred to socialist ministers. There was then a socialist minister of public affairs, then minister Van den Bossche. He has spent a lot of money on consultants. He was not satisfied at the end. Many consultants delivered performance that he was not satisfied with. He said we were paying by letting people “learn by doing.” It is not intended to give consultants know-how at the expense of the taxpayer.

That does not mean, however, that one cannot and should not engage external expertise on the left and right, but that can and should only be complementary, after we have exhausted the expertise that we have at home – we are fortunate to have a lot of expertise at home – to the maximum.

Let not Copernicus’ mistakes repeat themselves.

I made the comparison with a socialist minister with a thickening stroke, but Mr. Verherstraeten thinks so. He has actually said that Minister Vandeput is making the same mistakes as Luc Van den Bossche during Copernicus.

I know colleague Verherstraeten in the meantime enough to know that he is only intervening to give you a message, colleague Dedecker. What is that message?

Is that message, for example, that CD&V-ministers à la Kris Peeters may be tired of saving time and again in the social security, to then find that a minister of public affairs does not make his commitments concrete? When they turn on their television on Sunday, they hear the great Emperor of Antwerp say that it is very easy to save.

I read this between the lines in the explanation of colleague Verherstraeten. It is a call that has already come from various factions in the meantime, to tell Steven Vandeput that it is time to make that redesign concrete.

I ask myself very big questions for this year, 100 million euros, and ⁇ if it is indeed the ambition to save 600 million euros at cross-speed, in addition to the existing savings, the decided savings.

Mr. Verherstraeten, the quick wins are not in savings, but in underuse. They were also involved in the previous legislature.

You now say that you can do a lot more with quick wins. No, now we must start working thoroughly, we must now also reward the front runners in the administration, let go of that path of linear savings.

We had in the previous legislature a State Secretary for Public Affairs who did so with passion and vision. I still know very well. I followed the previous legislature Official Affairs: Mr. Bogaert came to the committee with his PowerPoint and he told what he was going to do, what he wanted to do together with those officials, together with those government agencies. Today we have a Minister of Public Affairs who hired consultants, who issued a check and then will see.

That fourth point I absolutely wanted to address. Col. Dedecker, I understand that it is difficult for you to whisper Mr. Vandeput explicitly back here in the plenary session, but please do so on the next party administration of the N-VA, because that kermis of the redesign has lasted long enough. It has taken long enough for Mr. Vandeput to keep everything and everyone in the wheel.

Mr. Calvo, I have already said that you can start working as ‘Mr. Soleil’, which would indeed not be bad. After all, there is a difference. On the one hand, there is such a thing as announcement policy. Once upon a time there were Greens who announced everything. On the other hand, there is a story like doop politics.

Mr. Vandeput does not come here every week to present his plans for the coming months. I also think it is best that he does not do that. However, I can guarantee you that the result will be there. You can count it on the result. I invite you not to count him off on all your leaves today, but on the result. That would be the best way to work. Calculate him on the outcome and not on the messy communication you are pushing forward here.

Mr. Dedecker, if we follow your logic, we will see the results, then we must withdraw the 100 million euros from the budget adjustment. If we want to be consistent, if we want to wait for the results, as the results are not there, we need to remove the 100 million euros from the budget adjustment because it is an economy that, at the moment, does not rely on anything.

I was present at the committee meeting where Minister Vandeput explained all this. If the whole process is followed, I think it will take at least another year and a half to ⁇ those results.

I have found that Minister Vandeput has asked his staff and the administration to propose a number of scenarios, which he will then examine with various ministers. The explanation was really not convincing, I think Mr. Calvo interpreted something very well.

I think it will be even more interesting than before. Just recently, Mr. Calvo has accused the minister of calling on consultants too often and not listening to his own people. Now Ms. De Coninck complains that the minister is asking for input from its own people. I think that is a very good thing.

What is it now? Which of the two is right? I think none of the two. I think the minister uses both and that is a very good thing. He wins external advice and appeals to his own quality people, with input from his own administration. This is a very good way of working. Again, rest assured of the results.

Colleague Dedecker, I had hoped to experience some openness with you in the matter. I want to ask you whether it really is a good idea to spend more on consultants than what the redesign will bring in the coming year. Just think calmly again whether you find that a good idea or not and let me know.

I think it is a strange way of working. If Mr. Vandeput of you is allowed to stretch that line, please ask your party chairman that he tires a little less over the mud-fat stand, where the euros for grabbing lie, because that is not the case. In this way you are actually doing nothing but shaking people who stretch out their neck, who work hard, who are already today engaged in difficult conditions in numerous public services, where one is today on the gums and where one has shortages. It has to be done with those persons, if one can present himself such a poor result with the path of redesign in this phase. If you promise that Mr. Vandeput will wake up and shoot from the start blocks, then I hope that together with you.

Finally, my colleagues, I look forward. There is still a very large effort to be made. We read in the media that the exercise would be postponed until after the summer. I take records of that.

What interests me much more than the timing of the exercise is the substantial direction of the exercise. I would like to take the opportunity to invite you to keep things out, to take into account the many indicators that stand on orange or red, and to take the lever to get out of the negative spiral, in particular to take a real fiscal reform, whether it is in September or in October.

In your introduction you said, Mr. Calvo, that during your discussion you would still return to purchasing power as a social indicator. I haven’t heard you do that yet. However, I have found that the indicators and the principles you cited at the beginning of your argument are not correct.

You said that the level of effectiveness continues to decline. However, it is already rising and is expected to reach 70% in three years. That is a good expectation. You have also said that nothing is done to the lowest incomes and that we should all respect that category. We have a lot of respect for that. Again, the wealth envelope is fully paid out. We increase the lowest benefits and also the living wage by 800 euros per year. We really put in on that. I hope that in your presentation you will come to the social indicator of purchasing power and then refer to the correct figures and statistics.

In short, the purchasing power is going up just like the level of efficiency. Except for the redesign, you did not say much.

I will not consider this as an invitation to speak even longer and more thoroughly.

You are not doing well.

I find that colleague Van Rompuy is more critical of opposition statements than, for example, for the Minister of Public Affairs or in real life for the Minister of Finance. Anyway, I look forward to the next blog. Apparently that is something more comfortable.

We will ⁇ continue to conduct the debates and I would even like to encourage you, Mrs Smaers, especially to continue to repeat as a CD&V group that the people are moving forward and that it is a social government. The more you repeat it, the less credible it is and the fewer people believe it. I can only look forward to 2018 and 2019.

I would like to conclude my discussion, colleagues, with an encouragement to put tax reform again on the agenda in September or October. I also refer to the recommendations adopted yesterday by the European Council, country by country. Some of those recommendations could actually come directly from our party program. The European Commission wants the burden reduction to focus on the lowest incomes and middle incomes. In addition, taxation should be greener. The system of commercial cars must be on the trunk. I would therefore really like to invite you to take some of those recommendations to heart and do something about commercial cars, for example, in September.

Mr Van Overtveldt, the corporate tax has disappeared from the agenda for a moment, but you have committed to come up with a proposal for a simplified, fairer corporate tax that is more tailored to SMEs. We are still waiting for this, as we are still waiting for a fair contribution from the greatest fortunes.

All these measures can already be taken and should at least be discussed in the next year’s budget. In any case, I hope that the system, which we have established for two years now, will not continue. It is therefore a systematic system in which, on the one hand, everything that smells of fair income and fairness continues to appear again and again in the reports of the Court of Auditors, because you get stuck in the matter, Mr. Minister of Finance, and, on the other hand, the measures in the social security and the measures for those who already have difficulty, become terribly concrete. At this point, the objectives are achieved. It’s time to stop that systematics and try new things. I think our citizens and our country deserve it, especially in these difficult times.

Thank you for your continued attention.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. In order for happiness to be complete, Mrs. Marghem would have had to join you as she did in commission last week. His arrival immediately helped raise the pressure and create animation. Unfortunately, she is not there and we must be content with the more reasonable pleasure we have to be with you to examine the budget adjustment you are proposing to us.

Today is June 29, 2016. In 18 months exactly, we can think that the majority will vote for the 2018 budget. Eighteen months, therefore, is the time that separates us from the recovery that you announce mordicus of structural balance. by Mr. Piedboeuf again recalled recently and you, Madam the Minister, you stressed it in committee, this structural balance at the horizon of 2018 remains the alpha and omega of the budgetary policy of this government. Honestly, during the committee debates and today’s plenary session, I did not hear that this adjustment would contain a single positive measure. The only motivating element for the majority, ultimately, is this budget balance in 2018. There is nothing positive in the short term for the population. At least we can hope that the balance in the horizon of 2018 is assured. It would be an achievement of this adjustment, unless there are positive measures. However, this achievement is far from being assured. As far as Mr. Van Rompuy has left doubts about the timing of the recovery. by Mr. Piedboeuf talks about 2018, you yourself, Mrs. Minister, after discussing all the options on the table, you have confirmed this horizon; Mr. Van Rompuy, more hesitant, suggests it could be 2019. This is a sign of concern. by Mr. Van Rompuy said that the majority was at the foot of the wall. And when one learns that the budget work for 2017 will not start directly but will be postponed to the end of the summer, one thinks that the horse fits in front of the obstacle. It is true that the obstacle is not thin, but in any case, this 2018 horizon seems very distant. In any case, the balance is not at hand.

This postponement of budget discussions, a government source explains it by the need to stabilize the figures. This formula is a nice confession because, ultimately, stabilizing the numbers is what the opposition is asking for in every budget discussion, whether in the initial years or in budget adjustments. We spend our time addressing the elements of insecurity and instability.

Finally, the person who spoke in the press comes to tell us that it would be good to stabilize the numbers, we would see more clearly. This is indeed a necessity, but not only because of Brexit. Brexit is good! I want to believe that there are external elements difficult to control, the global macroeconomic parameters are still uncertain, but the main uncertainty resulting from this adjustment is not related to these external parameters, it really depends on the budget control that is yours and which seems to me to contain a lot too many approximations, approximately, of uncertainty and uncertainty. What characterizes your budget work is accelerated obsolescence because the numbers are barely in the budget documents that they are already announced as being outdated, with the need to correct and stabilize them. It is this uncertainty that I would like to emphasize because it is it that prevents us from trusting you blindly. The only confidence you could generate is indeed a blind confidence, like the one that Mr. Manifests. Piedboeuf, who has a little confidence of the coal-bearer in relation to this government. Frankly, on the basis of the figures, we do not see very well what could feed this confidence.

There is an uncertainty first related to the salary. In the committee, we have had long debates on the establishment of the balance of 2016. The Court of Auditors pointed out in its report a lack of explanations on a whole series of elements. You yourself, Mrs. Minister, have had to explain long through the menu how the numbers could be established. You explained to us that the expenses related to the migration crisis were indeed included in the calculation of the balance, so that this flexibility clause, which you do not use, should not be taken into account. You finally admitted this error on page 94 of the general budget statement. Mistakes can be made, but what is more important is that at the start of this balance, the government’s budget trajectory remains very random. I want to prove that mr. Van Rompuy insists on the need to find 9 billion for 2018. by Mr. The Minister of Finance said in the press that this seemed to him a lot. There is therefore, within the majority itself, a divergence of appreciation as to the establishment of the structural balance to be filled, and this is not of nature to reassure the observers.

This uncertainty also proceeds from the techniques you use but these are techniques that are also heavy in meaning, heavy in impact in terms of transparency. The Court of Auditors, in its report, has repeatedly highlighted the lack of transparency in the adjustment work, in particular due to two techniques you use and abuse. This is, on the one hand, the technique of provisions and, on the other hand, the technique of underuse.

We have long talked about this in the committee, but I want to repeat here how much you inflate the provisions contained in your 2016 budget. In favour of the adjustment, you increase them by EUR 600 000 000, transferring them to 4 budget allocations only to an amount of EUR 1.6 billion.

It is a sum in which there is a whole series of expenses as varied as the indexation of wages, as if one could not clearly identify the positions on which the indexation of wages will manifest itself. All that will include communications expenses, as if we did not know very precisely from now on to attribute the expenses related in particular to the communications campaigns initiated by the government to redone the blason of the Belgian State, as if we could not attribute them very clearly elsewhere than in a provision. It is also in these provisions that military expenditure will be included, which the Court of Auditors reminds us that they are quite safe and certain. These provisions include consulting expenses related to redesign.

There is an abusive use of loans that objectively harm – this is not a criticism but a constatation – to transparency since very clever one who could say to what kind of expenditure will relate the loans you provide at the height of 1.6 billion.

Then, the second technique that undermines the exercise of the truth that should be a budget adjustment, is this technique of underuse, non-consumption. You have attached to the report the circular that is yours, Mrs. Minister of Budget, regarding this underuse. The circular speaks for itself. It speaks very clearly of a credit block. This is a blockage that you assume in the circular but then you should assume it in the eyes of this parliament by defining very clearly the positions on which you will reduce the credits. We are not talking about a small amount, we are talking about almost 1 billion euros, 960 million if my memory is good.

This means that the budget you are submitting to vote is not genuine as it contains appropriations that you properly know will not be used. It would be more correct, it seems to me, in respect of the ministerial departments and the members of this assembly as well as all those who are interested in the state budget, to define where you are going to make these savings instead of betting on what you call a form of budgetary prudence. This is indeed a blockage that concerns a very high amount, since the Court of Auditors’ report assessed it at 7.4% of the compressible expenditure. In other words, when you extract from the budget all incompressible expenses for which you do not have room for manoeuvre, there remains a volume. And the 960 million blocking accounts for 7.4% of this volume. This is huge, especially since some departments, very justly, are exempt from this blockage. We can only rejoice, but this means that the share that will be transferred to the other departments is only heavier. These measures come from a logic of austerity that is not assumed, but, on the contrary, well concealed. That is why I consider that this budget is not sincere and that there is a lack of transparency. This is a factor of uncertainty and insecurity.

Another factor of uncertainty that I want to pinpoint is related to spending. I have already touched you a word with this blocking technique. I will not return to the discussion we have had about the redesign. It remains that the annex to the report is interesting, in so far as the note submitted to the Council of Ministers on this subject is attached to it. Objectively, it is overwhelming. We speak of a superposition of working groups, travel groups, program groups, pilot groups, gathered together in a complicated organigram that resembles a gas plant. However, there is not a single number. I’m not going to reactivate the controversy, but it’s still hard to believe that the 10 million expenses you register in provisions are indeed a productive investment that will generate the 100 million savings you expect from this operation. Honestly, you do not convince anyone, including yourself.

And then, always referring to the spending chapter, I would like to highlight another gap that I think is detrimental to the transparency and control you claim to have over your budget. I mean the monitoring of expenditure.

Remember, at the beginning of the legislature - it was Mr. Jamar, at the time, who carried this message, but you took it back to your account, Mrs. Minister, we had been informed that the expenditure would be monitored very precisely and that by category of expenditure, they would be subject to drastic reductions. Less than 4% first on personnel expenditure, and then less than 2% annually; less than 20% on operating expenditure, and then less than 2% annually; less than 22% on investment expenditure and then less than 3% annually; less than 20% on optional subsidies, and then less than 2% annually.

At that time, we challenged the mechanical and somewhat blind nature of this method of work, but either, you assumed it by pretending that thus, you would be able to ⁇ your goals. Today, in 2016, two years later, I think it would be useful to make a numerical overview of this method. In the committee, I requested to dispose of figures resulting from this monitoring. by Mr. The chairman of the committee let me hear that they could be attached to the report, but they are not there.

I allow myself to ask them again. On what amount of personnel expenditure, operations, investments, optional subsidies have these reduction coefficients been applied, and with what effects? Are the figures announced in 2014 fully or partially verified?

There is an exercise of transparency that must be done. I cannot imagine for a second that the Minister of Budget does not have, within his cabinet, within his administration, all the figures related to the application of this monitoring. I think that in terms of transparency to parliamentarians, it would be good to communicate this information to us.

This would also give some credit to your budget trajectory. This would give some credit to the budgetary rigour you claim, of which you claim to be somehow the incarnation. In the absence of these numbers, we are obliged to believe you on word. Understand that we are a little hesitant to do so, especially since the provision and blocking mechanisms come to complicate the exercise.

Can you, Mrs. Minister, make all the transparency on the monitoring of spending and tell us, for 2015 and 2016, what amounts of savings you have been able to obtain by applying these reduction coefficients?

I come to another uncertainty factor, ⁇ the most important: it’s one that’s related to the revenue you’re betting on to establish your budget adjustment. I would like to highlight first that revenue is down – you will correct if I am wrong – by 1.3 billion compared to the initial budget.

The budget for Roads and Means is expected to reduce revenue by 1.3 billion. This is nothing and cannot be said to indicate a recovery in the economy, job creation or a reduction in the number of job seekers; rather it is a sign of a weakening in particular of economic growth. This in itself is not reassuring.

In the same order of ideas, concerns about the random nature of your revenue have been pinched out of the menu by the Court of Auditors. I will not return here to the discussions we had in the committee. You have provided some elements of answer, but, objectively, nothing convincing, either:

Reform of the Sicafi,

- on the tax regularization, which has not yet been voted,

- on the transparency tax which the Court of Auditors itself says lacks transparency,

- on the use of intercommunals in relation to the application of corporate tax,

- on the application of reduced VAT for school buildings, which has not yet been approved by Europe,

- on the Carat tax which you announce to us that it will be revised, since the original version does not hold the road,

- on the tax on gambling and betting, about which there are many uncertainties.

These are all the points mentioned and developed in the Court of Auditors report, to which you do not provide evidence that would make it possible to say that, of course, the expected revenues will be at the meeting.

Even worse, Mr. Minister of Finance, you have yourself added an element of uncertainty, even if it is not an enormous amount – we are talking about 34 million euros – with regard to the tax on speculation, which has a very significant political content. From New York, you stated that it ⁇ would not return the amount expected and that it would have been better to think twice before implementing it.

This is a reflection that could be made to you on most of the posts I have just mentioned.

You announced us an evaluation during the summer that opens. We hope that you will be able to come up with amounts that are, this time, safe and certain.

Another element of uncertainty, which has not been mentioned at all by the Court of Auditors, because the Court is not based on these figures, concerns the reality of tax revenues since the beginning of this year. This fact does not match your budget forecasts. Over the first quarter, the total revenue received by the federal government in 2016 was more than 10% lower than was received in 2015. This is an amount of 1.3 billion that is not found in the federal state treasures.

The calculation is stopped in April. Do you have new figures based on the perceptions of May? It would be interesting to share them because if you have an item that allows us to give some credit to your numbers, we are eager to get acquainted with it, but I fear unfortunately that is not the case.

I will conclude with regard to this revenue chapter by referring to the perspective of this corporate tax reform. You confirmed that this was part of the structural reforms desired by the government. My group may subscribe to this willingness to reform because it is known that corporate tax is quite unfair and quite unfair but it is still requested to look closer because if the reform you apply to the ISOC is of the same water as the tax shift, you can fear that there will again be additional holes in your Budget of Ways and Means that objectively, adjustment after adjustment, budget year after budget year, looks more and more like a crawl.

This is worrying because income uncertainty quickly translates into additional austerity on spending. I would like to believe that ideologically, this does not bother the majority groups much, but I think it is quite disturbing when one knows the unmet needs in terms of security, defence, mobility, etc. In all sectors still dependent on the federal state, unmet needs are significant. This prospect of increased austerity resulting from a form of laxism on recipes is worrying.

Here, Mr. Speaker, are the few comments I wanted to make. Whether on the trajectory, whether on balances, expenses or revenue, there is too much insecurity and instability in your figures for us to approve them. And again, I didn’t say anything about the stability program that wasn’t approved, but the responsibility is collective, I can’t complain about it. However, this is an additional element of insecurity. I have also not said anything about the adoption of the program law which seems to pose some calendar problems. Nevertheless, the revenues that appear in your budget, the numbers that appear in your adjustment depend on it. This is another uncertainty factor that is not related to Brexit, but to the way in which you manage the federal state budget.

Mr. President, I thank you. You are awesome.

This budget adjustment is already overtaken by the facts. Of course, I will talk about it, but the issue is already further. We learned today – we have been confirmed – that the conclave scheduled before July 21, 2016 was postponed to September. With an unchanged trajectory, we will need to find from 8 to 10 billion euros depending on whether we follow the Federal Bureau of the Plan or the National Bank. I really invite you, in this context, to listen to what the Federal Plan Office said last week, like other economists, including the most classic from the IMF or the World Bank. He explained that this trajectory was unlikely in a context where the economy does not function well. Seeking balance at all costs and too quickly through just a compression of public spending will continue to slow the economy, to reach the most fragile through the savings you make in social security and again in the health care framework at the level of this budget adjustment. This will undermine the confidence of our fellow citizens and entrepreneurs and prevent key investments in the economy of tomorrow and in the green transition of our economy that will create the jobs of the future. This will undermine public services and all tasks entrusted to them in terms of safety, tax collection or health.

I have already told you; we are waiting for you firmly, hoping for a change of direction, because to want at any cost, in an accelerated manner, to compress public spending in a context of low growth is unrealistic and counterproductive on the social, economic and environmental level.

I just heard something that shocked me. How do we gain the trust of entrepreneurs? With all the measures taken in favor of the development of the business, the reduction of costs, etc. I want to hear anything, but I don’t understand you at all.

You do not understand at all?

and no.

So I invite you to consult all the indicators published, for example, by the Union of the Middle Class in relation to access to credit.

by [...]

I also read The Union of the Middle Class, Mr. Clarinval, and I’m talking about the Union of the Middle Class in relation to access to credit, to fear of investing in a context...

I see the commentary of the Union of Middle Classes, I see the commentary of the Walloon Union of Companies...

Please please . by mr. Gillian has the word and he alone.

The [...]

I will not take away anything at all, Mr. Borsus!

Mr. President, you have no word. You did not ask for it! I repeat that it is mr. Gilkinet has the word.

Can I intervene?

If this is for a value added, Mr. Piedboeuf, I give you the word.

Of course, it is for added value.

The entrepreneurs and Mr. Gilkinet talks about the indicators. I have read the comments of the Walloon Union of Companies. I read the comments of the Union of the Middle Classes. I can see the reaction of the Chamber of Commerce. These are not indicators, but people who work, who say that the policy pursued by the government is going in the right direction. We all pray for better indicators, but that has nothing to do with the will of entrepreneurs and the development of their business.

They explain their fear of investing and their difficulties in accessing investment in an economic context where domestic consumption through the measures you have taken in particular regarding index jump or exclusion of the benefit of our social security system makes it not work optimally. Money does not circulate. We do not consume as we should. Our banks do not lend the necessary money. It is the UCM that also tells entrepreneurs and individuals.

Mr. Piedboeuf, I will give you the word that you ask for, while specifying, as President Bracke has just done, that we can interpell ourselves in an infinite way. There has already been a discussion in the committee. We are here to gather the position of each of the groups.

I thank you, Mr. President. I am not asking Mr. Gilkinet to slow down the debate. But how can one say at the same time that no index jump should be made to restore the competitiveness of companies and that the index jump is detrimental to companies? I do not understand.

The drop in the index damages the functioning of our economy and, therefore, the ⁇ as well. They have an obvious benefit by limiting the cost of labor, which no economist would deny, nor do I deny. But I ask you not to deny that the index jump and other austerity measures that have been taken by your majority have an impact on consumer confidence and on domestic consumption, and therefore an indirect effect on the functioning of the economy. I refer you to the communication of the Federal Bureau of the Plan last week that warns your majority – and that is what I also want to do – against a fiscal austerity, which is austerity and cannot work in a context of atony, in terms of the functioning of the economy.

I think we will get out of this, Mr. Piedboeuf, by a much more targeted investment policy than that of this government. Also, I invite you to work differently and on the method, with more seriousness, Mrs. Minister of Budget, Mr. Minister of Finance, and on the orientation of measures from a social, environmental and economic point of view.

As for the method, let’s recall this absolutely extraordinary episode, where the government questioned the monitoring committee’s estimates. In one night, we found, spectacularly, a few hundred million euros by questioning the estimates of budget specialists! Let us return to the lack of clarification of a large number of measures that the Court of Auditors had pointed out even though it was in chosen terms, in particular, Mr. Minister of Finance, overvalued revenues in terms of tax revenues. They had been little argued: the “diamond” tax that has not yet been approved by Europe and which will, without doubt, be replaced by something else; the revenues from the so-called Panama measures, which have been very little justified; the VAT on gambling that has been challenged by the State Council, which announces appeals to the Constitutional Court; the tax regularization that has not yet been voted and which poses other institutional problems; the revenues related to the reform of the sicafi, which the Court of Auditors announces to us that they will, in large part, be one shot and, ⁇ , again, a dubaine effect; likewise, Mrs. Minister of Budget, overestimated savings, in particular the redesign of the public administration of the Federal Office.

Another element of method is really problematic: that of the consultation with the Regions. In order to reach an agreement, there must be two. I can admit it. Nevertheless, there are too many provocations and too little willingness to dialogue with federal entities, especially French-speaking. Even if the wrongs are shared in this matter, I would like to again insist on the need, in a federal state, for better collaboration and better dialogue.

Mr. Speaker, we have good advisors in the tribunes and I just received the scheme communicated by the National Bank with a diagnosis and a finding of an increase in investments of 11%. It has been breaking all records since 2012, since 2011. We beat all investment records with an increase in investment in our country.

This is a sign of good politics.

I can, of course, refer you to other indicators and I came to those indicators that are not delightful.

We can, of course, Mr. Piedboeuf, Mr. Van Rompuy, have a selective reading. by Mr. Van Rompuy, just recently, referred to the figure of income from a macro-economic point of view, not in a redistributed way among citizens. SPF Finance has extraordinary tools to measure the impact of the measures it takes per decile of income, something we have asked in the tax shift and we still do not have.

But what we see, at the level of the incomes of our fellow citizens, is an increasingly unequal distribution between those who are today in sometimes ever greater difficulties and those who benefit from much larger incomes.

Other indicators, Mr Piedboeuf, are today published and I too, I take my notes in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals published today by the Federal Bureau of the Plan, which indicates that "Belgium will need to make additional efforts especially in terms of social indicators if it wishes to ⁇ the new Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN by 2030". This is the latest report from the Federal Bureau of the Plan.

I can also take statistics on child poverty, on the evolution of the number of social inclusion incomes or bankruptcies. I think there is nothing to rejoice about! The choice that has been made since the beginning of the legislature in terms of economy is a choice that hurts the most fragile.

Still within the framework of this budget adjustment, the measures taken in the field of health care, Mr. Minister, since you are present, are likely to impair the accessibility to care for our fellow citizens, not to mention the on-site in environmental matters.

To name only two examples: the non-implementation of resolutions voted in this assembly on the fight against the illegal trade in exotic timber and, following the Paris climate agreements, the distribution of CO2 quotas between the Regions. As I said, on the method, we cannot be satisfied with the way you work. I would like to add a methodological element taken from our meeting with the Court of Auditors. The latter insists on “the filing of the final accounts for the previous fiscal year before filing the budget for the following year”.

Assessing the tax measures and decisions that have been taken by your government is really problematic and we need to see clearly, especially in relation to revenue figures at this beginning of the year and the worrying decline in tax revenue.

Both on the method and on the substance, we cannot support the budgetary year. I would like to reiterate how many alternatives to your proposals exist. In terms of combating tax fraud, the Panama Commission is in full work but we should not wait until December and its conclusions to start taking action. Without a doubt, we will make new proposals, but every day brings new testimonies on the lack of funds from all the links of the fight against tax fraud. The latest in date is a study by the Supreme Council of Justice on the state of Brussels justice in the fight against tax fraud. We expect, as part of the decisions to be taken at the end of this year for the initial budget for next year, very precise commitments in this regard.

Mr. Minister of Finance, Mr. Minister of Economy, you are working on a corporate tax reform and there are things to do with regard to transparency, the removal of tax niches that are costly for the public finances and that create the effects of a slump.

This taxation must be reoriented for the benefit of small and medium-sized enterprises and, why not, move forward – this is a long-standing claim in the field of personal taxation – towards globalization. Mr. Van Rompuy, you systematically caricate our tax proposals by accusing us of wanting to raise taxes. No, we want to distribute it differently, weigh it on other heads than those that support it today, lighten taxation for some – especially SMEs versus multinationals – and better distribute income. It is a tax shift that we propose with the globalization of income, to treat financial income in the same way as labor income.

Similarly, in terms of social reforms, we want to better divide working time between young people, who are too many today to be unemployed, and older workers, some of whom perform more difficult functions physically or psychologically and cannot keep the pace of full-time. We wish to be able to reduce their working hours so that they pass to half-time and be replaced, during this abandoned time, by young workers. They should be able to stay active longer, with all the benefits it brings, but at a simply sustainable rate. Why not allow companies that wish to maintain their employment volume to reduce their working hours on a voluntary basis, with a specific orientation to reduce social contributions?

On the environmental level, we naturally want to contribute to advancing towards energy autonomy and thus fulfill our commitments made in the context of COP 21.

I would like to comment on the information provided by Mr. Paddle, which surprised me somewhat. In fact, I have before my eyes a picture taken from the National Bank’s economic projections made this month.

We can see, in terms of the gross formation of fixed capital of companies, a tasting in 2016, a slight increase in 2017, followed by a return in 2018 to the level of 2015. We are talking in corrected volume. So, of course, we take into account the conjunctual effects. In any case, Mr. Piedboeuf, I do not see the increase you are talking about. I keep the picture at your disposal, but this all surprises me a little.

I just sent it to mr. Laouej, for his personal construction.

I would like to exchange the tables and ask the services to transmit a copy of the one I have before my eyes, but it seems to me a bit short to launch figures to the canton; 11% increase in investments, while the National Bank, from 2015 to 2018, evokes rather a stability of private investments. Public investments are falling.

Mrs. Minister, I will conclude with this flexibility clause that you have, for a while, considered to use with regard to exceptional spending in the areas of security, counter-terrorism and refugee reception. It is ultimately a trail you are considering to pursue, but it is no longer part of the balance you are looking for.

In the context of your contacts with Europe, in particular with Mr. Moscovici, I would like to encourage you to use this flexibility clause for other purposes, to release a capacity of the federal state in connection with the Regions, to invest in the economy of the future. What we need today, in this context of low growth, lack of project and socio-economic mobilization – does not dislike Mr. Piedboeuf - these are targeted investments. Investing is, of course, spending, but for the future! Bad spending is that which is useless, has no demultiplier effect and does not trigger any economic mobilization.

You think that, in the framework of future works, at the European level, at the same time in the dialogue between the States and the Commission regarding the budgets to be presented, and in the dialogue post-Brexit, on a need of States, and the Belgian must be, who pledge for productive investments, among whom the search for a smaller energy dependence is a privilege. So, Madame Wilmès, you encourage you to play these clauses of flexibility but for valid and useful reasons on the plans economic, social and environmental. Dès lors, nous pourrons considérer les prochains exercices budgétaires de façon plus positive que cet ajustement que nous ne voterons pas tout à l'heure.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, in fact, I would be able to make it very easy for me to discuss this budget adjustment and to turn back to my intervention when the original 2016 budget was discussed here in the quarter in December last year.

I then said that, among other things, the income from the taxes on alcohol was overestimated. In the meantime, that has become the truth. You expected to collect 46 million additional excise duties in the first four months, but at the end of April you have not even paid half of that amount, namely 19 million euros. Also, VAT revenues on strong drinks were about 27 million lower in that period than the previous year. I told you then that increasing the excise tax on alcohol would result in that sector losing revenue and thereby deteriorating its competitiveness with the surrounding countries. Unfortunately, this is also the case. More and more people are shopping across the border.

If I warned you in December that the yield of a merely symbolic speculative tax was not only impressive but also highly uncertain, it is confirmed. Minister Van Overtveldt has responded from New York, the previous speaker also mentioned this. He admitted that the speculation was not a success. The minister has always said he is a cool lover of it, but he has introduced that speculative tax and until later he has missed a chance to abolish it.

I said about the sugar tax then that one was doing very hard to sell that tax as a so-called health tax, but it is a health tax that has nothing to do with the health of people, but all with the unhealthy budget. It was one or the other. If it’s your intention to target avoidance behaviour, then it’s not your intention to raise higher tax revenues from it. The latter is clearly the case. Therefore, have the honesty to communicate that in this way instead of pretending you are dealing with health policy.

Yesterday or today I read in the newspaper that it turned out that you have achieved the goal of getting money out of that sugar tax. People have been paying the tax for six months. However, this avoidance behavior does not appear to exist in practice.

Ladies and gentlemen, a lot has already been said about a good report and good results. I have some concerns about that.

Government debt has only increased since this government took office, reaching 106% of GDP. I do not think it is such a good report.

In May 2016, the European Commission noted that the budget deficit was even greater than last year. It is close to the 3% threshold with that ‑2.8%. That’s even worse than last year’s ‑2.6%. I don’t think that’s a proof of a well-functioning policy.

Thus, there is an increasing public debt and an increasing budget deficit. The structural balance is also declining. Revenue is falling and expenditures are increasing due to higher costs for asylum, migration and security, as the High Council of Finance also points out.

Mr. Minister, these are all spending items related to open border policy and Islamic terrorism. These are all things that we could have seen happen. I have heard some colleagues here today say that the forecast for 2017 is that the spending will then improve. I bet a lot that they will get up to the words that the change will finally work. However, the High Council of Finance itself says that those forecasts for an improvement in 2017 are just there because those additional spending on asylum and migration is considered non-recurrent.

I wonder if that is true. Additional expenses will continue to exist in the coming years. If it is not at this level, then the invoice will be moved to the OCMWs, among others. In December 2015, the cost of the migration crisis was too low. Then you described them as one-time expenses, while in reality, of course, they have gained a more structural character. I also said that at the end of last year. If you do not take all of that into account, you can of course continue to be rich.

The good report can also not lie in the results of the tax shift. The government exaggerates the impact, as was still in Time last month. A study by SD Worx also shows that employer contributions are not falling at all as strongly as the government claims. It is estimated that the decrease is approximately 1 to 4 percentage points depending on sector to sector. That is a little less than the promised drop of 8 percentage points. Meanwhile, the tax pressure remains huge.

Another surprise: cooperative federalism also appears to not work. Mr. Minister, you reproached yourself that the regions do not make equal efforts in these tight budgetary times. The question is what you are going to do about it and whether you could not have predicted it too. The problem goes beyond the regional budgets. In Flanders, the BBI has raised ten times more money from fraud than in Wallonia. Five percent of the total revenue comes from Wallonia. If you are asked questions about this, you will answer in The Time that this great difference should absolutely not give rise to a community relief. The community omerta is also honored. If one reads such things, then the good understanding knows that there is no political change to come.

I have heard all sorts of figures about economic growth. Mr. Dedecker spoke primarily about the international context. However, we must note that our economic growth is lower than in the Netherlands and Germany, which are all in the same international context. You don’t have to keep that umbrella always open, especially if it’s not right.

Mr Van Rompuy referred to the Brexit and its consequences. This is not the case for this budget adjustment. I heard the Prime Minister immediately declare that the Brexit bill should not be transferred to this country. Even before Brexit was a fact, Minister Peeters sat together with a whole team to calculate the possible costs. It should be of heart to me that I do not find it nice to only communicate about those possible costs, while one does not communicate about other billions of costs and even refuses to calculate them.

For example, why is it not communicated in the same way about the enormous costs of asylum and migration policies? The European Union determines it and this government performs the brave, but the taxpayer pays for it. It is now taken out of the budget. That is also another typical trick that is also used for the cost of security. However, it is not because it is not in a budget that the invoice should ultimately not be paid. Theoretical figure fetishism as a covering machine, that may not be the intention.

Why is it not communicated in the same way about the billions of aid to Greece, or the billions needed to keep the euro artificially alive? These coins should also be paid to the taxpayer. The European Union, through its failing policy on asylum and the euro, not only makes the national budgets go extra red, but then adds another dismally high amount for that European Union itself, a gift to the European Union for bad policies as well.

Mrs. Pas, what is the position of the Flemish Interest? Do you think Brexit is a good thing? Do you think a vlexit is also needed? Your president is behind the Brexit and the vlexit. In fact, we must leave the European Union and the euro, because you do not accept the conditions. What is your position on this subject?

Our position is very clear and we are also the only party that has a different stance than everyone else.

From the Euro?

The euro is unsustainable. By leaving the euro, as many economists say, one can strive for a smaller currency union in which the markets are at least similar. There are many economists who speak of a “neuro” and a “zeuro”. More reason to quickly split this country, so that Flanders can at least join the markets à la Germany, to which we belong, and a northern euro.

As for your question on Brexit, this is not at all part of these discussions on fiscal adjustment, but I would very much like to conduct that debate. What if this European Union doesn’t draw the right conclusions if a country makes a statement on the direction the European Union is heading? This is something that we don’t even like! Amend the Constitution so that a referendum can be held. Ask the opinion of the people and also take into account the opinion of that people.

If the British rightly say that they do not need Merkel’s Wir-schaffen-tas policy, that they do not need to put billions in groundless wells, and do not have to maintain Belgium as a whole, with all the adverse consequences of it, then that must indeed be honored.

If the European Union does not learn that it must be organized in a different way, if I hear the Verhofstadts of this world engaged in the flight forward, to even more European superstate, to even more integration towards the European superstate, then I actually say that one is much better off with a vlexit, if one does not draw the lessons that must be learned from the Brexit.

If that is the answer to your question, I can now return to my discussion on the budget.

The [...]

What is not communicated, when one talks about the possible costs of Brexit, are the costs that the European Union is burdening us, and then I’m only talking about the money that the European Union gets annually from this country to maintain its own functioning. The budget stipulates that Belgium will provide EUR 3 209 880 000 to the European Union to cover its needs for 2016.

That’s the full amount you need to get your 2017 budget in order. This for comparison.

In my view, that is a dotation that can be reduced, especially because there are a lot of agencies in the European Union that do not use out their operating resources each year and transfer to the following year. As long as that money doesn’t all come back to the Member States, with a distribution key, it’s crazy to keep depositing.

If you’re making lists on the cost of one, at least honestly update the lists with the cost of the other.

Finally, I would like to talk about the additional costs that you have included in this budget adjustment. There are members of a ruling party, but they are unfortunately absent today, who write books about the size of the monarchy. However, this budget adjustment shows that the same ruling party is the best friend of the monarchy.

Apparently not everyone lives above their stand, because I see that apparently there is still room to give a well-defined family a fixed storage. This applies to both King Philip and King Albert, Astrid and Laurent. They all have storage. I see in the budget adjustment that King Philip receives 39 000 euros extra in the Civil List to be able to exercise his job.

In fact, it is not necessary for his numerous private trips. They can still fly at the expense of the state. The figures I received from Minister Vandeput for 2015 showed that an average flight of 5,500 euros every two weeks.

When, under similar savings conditions with our northern neighbors in 2015, the king received a similar deposit, a so-called index deposit of 30 000 euros, that king rightly believed that everyone should contribute to the savings. He refused the storage.

Of course, our king does not do that. Colleagues, you would have better done that instead by not incorporating such increases into your budget adjustment.

Ms Uyttersprot asked me to be brief. So I immediately go to my conclusion.

When I look at the 2016 budget, including the upcoming budget adjustment, I see a lot of similarities with the budgets of Di Rupo and purple. It is a huge layer and a load pressure that, despite everything, remains gigantic. The tax shift is much smaller for employees and employers than expected. To overcome the problem, there are the classic tricks: keep the so-called one-time business out of the budget, impose extra taxes faster, add more excise duties on diesel and fight tax fraud that will bring you more money. These are all things that we hear come back every time and every year. Of course, the major problems are not addressed.

Meanwhile, large spending continues to rise, such as costs for asylum and migration as well as transfers. In these classical deals, there is no force of change yet to be noticed. I hope that those changes in your 2017 budget, which you will start doing next summer, will be the case.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, when I hear the colleagues of the majority! Mr. Van Rompuy who tells us that there will still be billions to save on the following years; Mr. Piedboeuf tells us "the work of budget austerity is not over!"; and Mr. Dedecker: “We can see the end of the tunnel.” We see it, but we are not there.

Indeed, this leads us back, Mr. Van Rompuy, to this discussion on the tunnel. Because someone who is now 30-35 years old was born in the tunnel of Wilfried Martens. And he never got out of it, he is still in the tunnel today, he continues to walk there.

This is the situation of the vast majority of the population. Except for the richest 1 percent. They, long since they are outside the tunnel, they walk over the tunnel. There are 99% in the tunnel, and then there are 1% above the tunnel. That is the situation. A situation that unfortunately gets worse from year to year.

I am not going to recall here the work of an economist like Piketty saying that indeed we are now in an economy of renters. The richest 1% have more and more, possess more and more, and the increase of their assets, the profitability of their capital evolves faster than economic growth. This has as a consequence that, in this dynamic, the rich are naturally richer, always richer. Of course at the expense of others.

And this budget exercise reflects this trend quite well, since we see that we are not close to getting out of the tunnel. Why Why ? Because we have a government that combines two things. On the one hand, this government continues to impose increasingly strong austerity and, on the other hand, there is a lack of budgetary rigour. And that is crazy.

There is both austerity and at the same time the absence of budgetary rigour, that is the policy of this government.

The National Bank has ⁇ , the Federal Bureau of the Plan also: there is an effort of 8 to 9 billion euros. And what is quite surprising is that we hear the National Bank say that thanks to the policy of this government we are on the right path... and therefore that we will have to save 8 to 9 billion!

When I hear this, I think maybe it’s better to try the wrong way. That is quite worrying.

The National Bank says economic forecasts for employment are good. First, the previous forecasts of the National Bank are not exempt from problems. And most importantly, if we ever see an improvement, it will be due to the effect of the climate rather than the policy of the government. The Federal Bureau of the Plan says the growth of Belgian wages will remain below inflation in the coming years. Foreign wages are driving growth. In Belgium, wages are lower. Wage growth is lower than inflation. If all countries functioned like Belgium, we would have a lack of employment growth. Finally, we must thank the German workers who managed to get their wages raised.

I come to the famous structural balance that is the bible of this government, the bible of the austerity policies pursued by this government. If we look at the evolution of this structural balance, what the government announces to us every year and what it actually does, we see a big gap. Let’s take this year 2016. Initially, when the government took office in 2014, it told us that in 2016 the structural balance would be -0.7%. Then the following year, in 2015, in the general report of the 2016 budget, he said that it would not be at -0.7%, but it would be at -1.2%. And now, in the adjustment we are discussing for 2016, we are at -1.7%, that is, lower than what was initially planned for 2015, by the government. Whenever the government moves forward, six months or a year of budgetary trajectory, the balance deepens. Therefore, here is a government that imposes both austerity and lack of budgetary rigour.

In terms of tax revenues, however, note that this right-wing liberal government made, in 2016, 3 billion more revenues than in 2015. We are accustomed to the anti-fiscal discourse that we are going to lower taxes. But when we look at all the tax revenues, we see 3 billion more. Who pays these additional tax revenues? Certainly not those who are part of the 1% who walk over the tunnel, but rather the 99% who have walked in the tunnel for 30 or 35 years.

To facilitate the fiscal year, the government invents tax measures or reinterprets tax measure yields, reevaluates estimates, as opposed to those of bodies responsible for fixing budgetary criteria, such as the Monitoring Committee.

A few examples. The tax settlement scheme remains at €250 million despite delays. We wonder how we will do it.

What about the tax on speculation? by mr. The Minister of Finance invented a tax symbol. Today, he tells us that the symbol is disappearing. Even the little rikiki of tax on the speculation we were going to have vanished. The minister says that this may not mean anything at all. This may even cost more because we will lose on the stock exchange tax level. Even the symbol of capital taxation is disappearing! I will say that mr. The Minister is Nothing! Excuse me, Mr. Minister, but even if the symbol falls, we wonder what’s left of you!

Then came the Panama measures, which I call the Panama measures. It is both much and little. That’s a lot too much because we know that the revenue you expect this year, namely 67 million, is an unrealistic and unrealistic estimate.

In the long run, this is ridiculous. There are billions of dollars in tax havens. We have 20 billion euros of budget losses per year due to tax fraud and you come up with measures that must bring back 67 million euros. This is obviously nothing at all. It’s a drop of water and it ultimately shows your little ambition in the fight against tax fraud. This same ambition is reflected in measures such as the contribution of the diamond sector. There is no response from the European Commission, but there is still an amount in this budget.

We could also talk about non-tax revenues: Doel 1 and 2 conventions that will bring an astronomical amount of 20 million euros, an amount so low that the recipe is uncertain! The European Commission may consider that there is state aid. There is therefore a recipe that is uncertain and ridiculous by its amount and, in fact, uncertain because it is ridiculous by its amount. This is because you take a return so low that it is uncertain since there is a risk of state aid.

There are also, unfortunately, all the attacks, and they are serious, against the population, such as the attacks on social security ⁇ strong in this budget. As much as we have illusory, misleading, calculated tax revenues, as much as the attacks, the 450 million euros of social security savings, are real.

The same goes for attacks on public services. Colleagues have already talked about the famous redesign where we witnessed a fairly interesting part of ping-pong between Mrs. Minister of Budget and Mr. Minister of Public Service. It was really a nice match where when you ask for precise figures, besides what it will cost in consultation costs, the minister returns to Mr. the Minister and vice versa. We had no amount.

The only amount that Mr. Vandeput can give us, it is that of replacing the F-16. It is estimated that there will be a cost of 15 billion euros in the coming years. But since the government has returned this budget to after the legislature, it is easy! It would be interesting to integrate it into the structural budgetary effort that is being carried out.

In addition to the discussion that one can have about the reality of things, I unfortunately think, unlike colleagues from the opposition, that there is a real exercise of budgetary economy through this redesign that will consist of further cuts in public services. Today they are crumbling. Just look at a television newspaper to realize that today, all sectors of public services can no longer. It is rare that I cite the FEB but, today, even the FEB says that Belgium is the latest in its class in terms of infrastructure investment. The FEB bosses are a bit ingrat. I grant it to you. In fact, for years, they have been telling the government: “Go, cut off public services! Cut off that fat. Go on, do not hesitate! And then, once you respond to the FEB’s orders, as a right-wing government does, they tell you, “Oh, look, we’re the last in our class in terms of infrastructure investment!” The bosses are of incredible ingratitude. You should stop listening blindly. Look at what happens to you!

Finally, to conclude, I will quote the words of our eminent colleague Van Rompuy who said, as Margaret Thatcher said in the 1980s: “TINA, there is no alternative.” There is nothing else to do but cuts, austerity, austerity, austerity. We have been in the tunnel for 35 years, since the days of Martens and Dehaene. And we will still stay in the tunnel for years because the more we advance in these budgetary exercises, the more the structural balance drops. Every year it is lower.

Mr. Van Rompuy and other colleagues from the right-wing government, I tell you: yes, there is an alternative. It’s going to target those who are above the tunnel. As Piketty signals, it is those who today have a fortune that continues to increase, that famous 1%. If they are not taxed, their share will continue to increase. They represent 1% but already have as much as 60% of the poorest in Belgium: 420 billion euros of fortune in Belgium. In their 420 billion fortune, is there no way to go and get a few billion, Mr. Van Rompuy, Mr. Minister? No to? Is this so taboo?

There are also all the gifts to multinationals that might one day need to be questioned. Another example today: we know the famous dossier of excess profit rulings that the Minister of Finance defends. It even goes against the position of the European Union. Are you aware? It must be done! The European Union has imposed austerity on us for years but, once it goes in the opposite direction, there, we oppose it.

Among the 35 multinational companies that have benefited from these over-profit rulings, there is Dow Corning, a chemical company that has a factory near my home, in Seneffe. Today, we learn that it is going to remove jobs, while it has taken advantage of this aberrant tax system. The argument that tax gifts lead to employment is contradicted. Fiscal gifts lead to redundancies, because there will be dry redundancies in this business that is in no way deficitary. But simply, in favor of restructuring, they decided to increase profits, which are already substantial, but still insufficient.

This is the policy that is yours. This may be a surprise, but we will not be able to support this budget adjustment.

I find that the measures you are advocating are going in the right direction. But the reforms you are undertaking are not yet profound enough. I mean for example the first job free of social charges for the employer. This measure creates employment. The figures prove this: 65,000 new jobs were created.

So why stop at your first job? The People’s Party, by the way, had in its program this proposal to allow the companies three new jobs. So, if I calculate correctly, it would have created ⁇ 200,000 new jobs.

However, not all measures are antisocial. There is a tendency to interpret them in a negative way. But the purchasing power of citizens does not decrease, on the contrary. The tax shift produced its effects despite the increase in VAT on electricity or even the index jump that was for me an inadequate measure.

In contrast, I hear that we have amortised the crisis thanks to our well-provided public services. I cannot guarantee it. You amortised the unemployment figures by creating public jobs, but this has had no impact on growth in the medium and a fortiori, long-term.

Rather, you should deepen structural economies, which should prevent you from crawling into the pockets of workers and social workers. We need a different tax system. It is not normal for large companies to pay very little tax compared to others, who pay too much. This discrepancy inevitably limits the recovery. The society has evolved and evolves day by day. We need to adapt to this constant evolution.

Back to the savings, and based on the observations of the Court of Auditors, I find that the debt rate is not going backwards. This shows that an appropriate reform is needed. Furthermore, by pursuing too lax parallel policies, such as immigration, where we don’t control much, and even if Mr. Francken is trying to correct the shot, our spending is still too high: more than a billion for the migration crisis and terrorism. It is huge! In 2015, this amounted to 0.03% of GDP and 0.26% in 2016. The Court of Auditors also notes that the presentation of the expenses for this position is not very clear.

In another case, that of social dumping, which deprives us of a lot of revenues, it is difficult for you to lead a consistent policy in this regard. We have lost jobs in the construction sector.

I am aware that a budget and, by the strength of things, a budget adjustment is an ambition of the government and that many parameters can be uncertain, but if you run a really ambitious policy, you would have an ambitious budget and adjustment.

Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I will abstain from this vote because I look forward to seeing your real ambitions.

Mr. Speaker, the report of the monitoring committee incorporated the update of revenue and expenditure based on the new macroeconomic parameters that themselves came out of the economic budget of February. As usual, technical corrections amounted to 153 million. Following these corrections, measures were decided for the amount of EUR 1.6 billion. I’m not going to go back to the menu because we talked about it long together.

When we take into account the latest technical corrections and transition parameters that ensure the transition from the nominal balance to the structural balance, it can be inferred that the balance of Entity I is expected to reach 1.6% in 2016, which corresponds to an improvement of that structural balance from year to year of 0.6% of GDP.

This result also meets European demands in terms of improving the structural balance while integrating expenditure associated with the major challenges we face, the asylum crisis and expenditure related to the fight against terrorism and radicalism. I had the opportunity to explain in a committee that all these expenses were well integrated into the balances, both the nominal balance and both the structural balance, and this explanation was corroborated by the statement of the Court of Auditors which says well that these expenses are part of the balances.

Flexibility is something else. The flexibility clause will apply if there is a deviation from the budget trajectory. It will participate in the analysis, in the assessment that the European Commission will make of this potential deviation. This is, therefore, an ex-post analysis, after spending, which is done by the European Commission on our budgetary trajectory. The appeal to the flexibility clause, if necessary, does not preclude the inclusion of all such expenses in the balance sheets. This should be clear to everyone.

The Court’s report was one of the starting points of our discussion in the committee. The Court of Auditors has a critical view of expenditures and revenues and of the new measures affecting them.

This is, and always is, a classical and recurring exercise and the formulated recommendations should be considered as beacons to help the government implement these measures and ⁇ it objectively.

Indeed, the Court of Auditors has made observations, but it has also indicated that it is increasingly being informed, allowing it to provide more specialised comments.

I ⁇ do not want to lay aside the criticism, but I would also like to emphasize the words of the representatives of the Court of Auditors, who, during their hearings in the committee, said that there were clearly fewer insufficient credits than usual and that no major problems were identified. This shows the seriousness of the government’s approach.

As I also pointed out two weeks ago in the committee, I remember that in the future we will need to give more detailed explanations to Parliament about new and complex concepts in order to avoid misunderstandings with the Court of Auditors and Parliament. I think in particular of the use of the flexibility instrument, as we find that there are still difficulties in understanding this, as well as the transition between the nominal and the structural balance. In that perspective, I would like to say that we have used the same methodology as usual and as in previous years, and this is the first time that the Court has made a comment on the difficulties for members to understand this. We assume that and next time we will give a better explanation of the passage on the nominal and structural balance, but I repeat that we used the same methodology as usual.

I have also heard some of you talk about the problem related, in their opinion, to the lack of transparency that would result from the inscription of provisions in the budget or blockages operated through underuse. I have already had the opportunity to answer these two comments clearly, but that will not prevent me from answering you again.

I would like to remind you that the underuse is fixed at a lower amount compared to 2015. That year, a underuse of 960 million was found while the Court of Auditors, at the beginning of 2015, pointed out what it believed to be a priori of potential credit insufficiencies. On the other hand, this year, it also points to some overestimation of spending.

So I come to the way in which underuse is constituted. There is indeed a natural underuse because one cannot spend 100% of the budgets, for several reasons: delays in delivery markets, cancellation of public procurement. And it is true that to this natural underuse comes the underuse decided by the government, concretized by administrative blockages of credit. I recall here that the use of blockages is not new since it has been used under other governments.

I also draw your attention to the fact that these blockages are subject to a few exceptions in order to be consistent with government policy. They are clearly inscribed in the circular. There is Justice, the OCAM, the Crisis Centre.

You should also know that the departments themselves were able to propose a ventilation of the blockages on their own budget, taking into account the priorities they had set themselves. In addition, by definition, a block can be removed quickly in the event of a problem.

Regarding the transparency of blockages, Mr. Dispa himself referred to the circular annexed to the Commission report. In addition, the Parliament has all the blocks that have been submitted to agreement.

As regards provisions, I believe that they meet the criteria recalled by the Court of Auditors. Provisions are in fact credits that are reserved for a specific purpose, without however the definitive allocation being known. So, in the framework of asylum, there was indeed still a significant uncertainty on the needs of FEDASIL in the coming months depending on the evolution of migration flows but also on the needs of the SPP Social Integration, which will meet the first effects of asylum seekers arriving in 2015.

In the case of asylum in particular, the increase of the credit through the provision also allowed the department to have very quickly the resources to implement projects that fit within the priorities set, without waiting for the appropriations to be adjusted in a budget adjustment. The same logic also applies to the provision of terrorism and radicalism in the sense that projects are approved gradually.

With regard to the control of these expenditure, their use is conditional on compliance with strict criteria, budgetary supervision, either by the Financial Inspectorate and by myself and in any case, their use is limited to what they were created for. Furthermore, credits are granted only when the amount of the expenditure is certain. This adds to the strict control of spending.

Regarding visibility, access to information by parliamentarians, I recall that all distribution decisions are subject to publication in the Moniteur belge, which is accessible everywhere. by Mr. Dispa had a special request on reporting. I think other people are also interested in this, isn’t it Mr. Laouej? It should be noted that the law of 22 May 2003 specifies - I quote -: "The Minister of Budget periodically transmits to the Chamber of Representatives and to the Court of Auditors the status of the appropriations, as well as their allocation by programme and by basic allocation." This exercise is carried out quarterly and the next report will be sent to the Chamber in mid-July.

Finally, there was a question about the general accounts. The Court of Auditors had actually explained that the sooner the accounts of the previous year were received, the easier it was to follow the budgetary trajectories and that this also contributed to the objective of transparency desired for parliamentarians. I would like to remind you that we have, since the approval of the general accounts of 2008, in a few months, resolved the delay by approving the accounts of 2008 to 2013, on 19 November 2015.

The general accounts for 2014 were voted on 25 February and we sent the 2015 accounts to the Court of Auditors on 22 April.

This demonstrates a constant improvement of deadlines. We had until June 30 to send the document, we did it on April 22. We are waiting for the results so that we can submit them to vote.

I thank you for your attention.

The Minister of Budget painted the overall picture of the budget and also addressed a number of aspects related to spending. It goes without saying that we must carry out budget control and budget formulation in somewhat special international circumstances, but I will briefly discuss this later.

Questions were asked about income items.

As regards electricity VAT and, more specifically, the ISI’s investigation of abuses, the ISI’s investigation report of February 24 shows that the VAT amounts that may be recovered from large and medium-sized distributors amount to €41.5 million instead of the €250 million expected at the time of the initial budgeting. The files are being processed by the ISI and are following the process provided by the application procedures.

As far as regularization is concerned, as agreed here last week, a substantial opinion from the State Council is coming. We are also working on cooperation agreements, specifically with Flanders. We hope that this will work well with Wallonia and Brussels as well. In addition, within the FOD Finance through internal mobility, ten additional staff members are planned for the Contact Point Regularisations at the Pre-Decision Service. Further preparations, including around ICT, are in full progress.

Finally, in connection with the regularization, I have another comment on the amounts circulating in this regard. In 2015, the Regul totaled 78 million euros instead of the 184 million euros registered during the October revision. In 2016, the revenue from the new regularisation legislation was registered at 250 million. That is 172 million — 250 min 78 — more than in 2015. This explains the different amounts circulating around regularization today.

Regarding the kaaimantaks, it must ⁇ not be forgotten that a significant part of the income involved in the legal structures undertaken by the kaaimantaks are movable income from shares, accounts and the like. This is in principle due to a mobile advance fee. With regard to the global yield of the Kaimantax, in order not to excessively complicate the tax return, we have not introduced any additional codes. Without these additional codes, it is effectively more difficult to estimate the specific yield of the Kaimantaks.

We will also regularly evaluate the Kaimantaks, as is the case with a new tax. If it turns out that there are escape routes, we will of course not hesitate to close them as soon as possible.

For the ISOC on intercommunal, it is mainly about difficulties in terms of reserves, which have prompted some intercommunal to address the Constitutional Court. In the meantime, an amendment has solved most of the problems.

The initial 2014 law that, in some cases, excluded intercommunals from corporate tax has raised a lot of resistance, because several issues were not yet resolved. The 2015 Act solved these problems, in particular that of reserves and provisions made. This should allow to lift the objections of several intercommunals and also to convince the court that must consider the proceedings they have initiated.

With regard to the new fiscal measures, there was also a discussion on real estate vehicles. We expect a recurring influx of 250 million euros of revenue each year. It is true that the composition of those 250 million euros differs in the short term and in the period in which the vehicles are at cross-speed.

The Court’s observation on real estate vehicles concerns the one-time conversion of an existing stock of projects into the new statute in 2016 and a part in 2017, which generates 116 million euros of exit taxes in 2016 and another one-time 50 million euros of exit taxes in 2017. From 2018 onwards, exit taxes will cover the €2 billion of new projects that we expect to be introduced annually. One has the recurring exit tax on those 2 billion euros of new projects, each year, and a one-off effect of the exit tax on the existing stock that was introduced in 2016 and part in 2017.

The tax regime for the GVBF is aligned with the existing tax regime for the GVB. There is no new tax regime.

Now to the Panama Measures. I see that Mr. Calvo is gone. In fact, there are twelve measures, some of which make it impossible to estimate the budgetary revenue. Nevertheless, these are measures that will ⁇ have an impact. It is for precautionary reasons that we have finally registered gross 67.8 million euros, net 65 million euros of income from these measures.

With regard to the Diamond tax, the "Diamond" regime was laid down in the Program Law of 10 August 2015. Since the diamond scheme is sector-specific, the entry into force of the scheme has been postponed until the European Commission has confirmed that the scheme does not constitute an eligible state aid. Although the Government remains of the view that the Diamond Scheme, as provided for in the Programme Act of 10 August 2015, does not constitute incompatible State aid and that it adequately addresses the control problems identified, a limited adaptation has been made to the Scheme and submitted to the European Commission following discussions with the Commission.

Through this adaptation, the scheme becomes even more specific and focuses more on a solution to specific problems in the monitoring and recovery of stocks, which is relevant in the context of the finding that this measure would not constitute incompatible State aid.

I then come to the VAT on games and bets and the amount of 39 million euros. Contrary to what the Court of Auditors asks, there is indeed a clear legal justification.

First, the principle of fiscal neutrality is respected. From the available data relating to the gambling sector, it can be inferred that consumers who use online gambling constitute a very different audience than those who do it offline and, in other words, choose the “physical” gambling and gambling. For example, 88% of the traditional audience engaged in gambling and cash gambling would never play online. The fact that the online market and the physical market are rather separate markets is also reflected in several opinions, including from the Belgian and French competition authorities.

That market segregation arises, inter alia, directly from the different circumstances in which those services are provided. In particular, online services can be used 24 hours a day, which, of course, is not the case for offline services.

As for the sharing economy, with the government’s proposal, incomes that were not previously taxed will be brought to the surface. Indeed, income from limited beekeeping activities is often not ⁇ . There is also a cost maximization, so that the net income falls below the limit to be subject to social security contributions as a self-employed person. This is witnessed by the various investigations and judgments, specifically in the sector of services offered through online platforms.

Furthermore, the complexity of the regulation led to the fact that taxpayers also often hid themselves behind the argument that they did not know whether and in what manner such income should be declared. However, the new system informs the tax office of the nature and size of the additional activity of a taxable person through the obligation to file.

The speculative tax is currently under analysis, an analysis that will be discussed within the government immediately. All I’ve said so far is that several informal contacts with the sector have shown that the budget objectives may not be achieved. Moreover, there is a negative impact on, for example, the stock exchange tax. I believe it is my responsibility as Minister of Finance to monitor such developments and to make timely alternative or corrective proposals.

Finally, I want to comment on the general framework in which we are today and its impact on incomes. Due to higher than expected growth in the fourth quarter of 2015, neither the Planning Office nor the National Bank recently adjusted its growth forecast for 2016.

Indeed, that higher growth in the fourth quarter of 2015 has a beneficial effect on the overall yearly growth for 2016, compensating for the time being for or neutralizing the negative impact of, for example, terrorist attacks on the economic climate.

Nevertheless, in its latest forecast, the National Bank states very explicitly that the months-long threat of terrorism and the very regrettable attacks of March 22 will not lose effect. They will demand their taxes. The National Bank is pushing forward a minimum of 0.1% of GDP, or 400 or 500 million euros. Particularly the Brussels catering sector suffers from the marked decline in the influx of foreign tourists and business travellers. Tourism revenues have generally declined. We see this very clearly in the sales figures, in the VAT declarations of the hospitality industry, ⁇ in the Brussels Region.

There is no contradiction between higher than expected economic growth... The fact that growth for 2016 remains unchanged has everything to do with the last quarter of 2015. There are economic circumstances, and I will not mention Brexit, which unfortunately make us a little less optimistic about the environment.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleagues Laaouej and Carcaci for staying in the session! The opposition has come up to ask a lot of questions and it is not here to listen to the answers! by Mr. Vanvelthoven was not there. by Mr. Calvo has just arrived! by MM. Gilkinet and Van Hees were absent! In the face of the seriousness of the ministers and the precise answers given, beyond the elucubrations of the billionaires of Mr. Van Hees, I wanted to greet those who stayed in the session.

Mr. Piedboeuf, I would suggest that you be further informed before submitting such comments.

Why did the House Speaker and several members of the opposition just leave?

Because they have quarrels. Because the opposition is united, because the opposition is divided.

Mr. Piedboeuf, you know why?

Because the majority has a problem with the tax program law. That bill will not be approved if the opposition does not sign up and reflect on what should be done in the next 24 hours.

You dare to provoke now, by asking where the opposition was and why its banks were empty. Those banks were empty, because we and the Speaker of the House sat together to solve the problem of the majority. That is why the banks were empty.

I am very happy that Mr. Laaouej be present – the problem is not there – I think you should show much more humility. If one should clearly denounce the number of times when in a commission, for example, the majority is not in number to support this government, we would each time have very large time spaces in plenary sessions. So a little modesty, please!

It will not escape anyone that I am really here. I would like to thank the ministers for the answers they were willing to give us. But the most important thing is missing. We have been many to ask you whether you confirm the postponement of the budget conclave on the 2017 budget. We have the right to know.

We have also been several to tell you that the Brexit had a good back and that it did not justify that at least you could tell us what were the main lines allowing you to find the 8 to 9 billion that you indicate the National Bank and the Plan Bureau as structural efforts to provide to reach the balance in 2018. We need answers and I think it is legitimate to ask you for details on your future schedule.

Another aspect for which I have no answer: the increase in tax revenues as identified in the first quarter of 2016, compared with the evolution of revenues in the same period in 2015. There is a dramatic decrease of more than one billion euros. You are not talking about it. This plumes your 2016 budget; while this decrease should ideally be already incorporated into your adjustment, but I can understand that the thing may be difficult to do, but here’s what should also lead you to tell us how you’re going to do to solve this problem. If you have up-to-date figures - this is a legitimate question from M Dispa - do you have any revenue seen at the end of May 2016? You should have them and observe if the bill of 8 to 9 billion does not actually weigh an additional billion.

For the surplus, the question has been asked, so I repeat it. We are absolutely not convinced. What characterizes your budget, from a revenue point of view, is uncertainty.

I have said. There is an uncertainty that weighs around a billion euros. The Court of Auditors said so. We repeat it. Your answers are not satisfactory. They are not reassuring. On the expenses side, I have not heard any further details about the redesign. We remain in the vague. At some point, however, we will have to be able to clarify who Ms. Wilmes or Mr. Trump is. Vandeput will give us answers. It is starting to go well! That’s 100 million euros now, you expect this position to save 650 million euros by the horizon of 2018. It is necessary to properly inform the Parliament. For now, it is the nebula.

For the rest, you explain to us that underuse should not be perceived as a block. This is a blockade! You set a savings target for all departments that will add to the linear savings that have already been recorded. I do not see what brings anything new to this conclusion. We are not convinced. I will not repeat the debate. In any case, on two fundamental points, namely the evolution of tax revenues and the budget schedule for the 2017 budget, I would like, Mr. Speaker, to obtain clarifications.

Two questions were asked by Mr. I laughed and found no answer.

Mr. Speaker, regarding the increase in under-use, as the colleague pointed out, the Court of Auditors has made it very clear that there are a number of over-estimations in the budget that have not been taken into account, including in the posts Asylum and Migration. As always with a budget, there are collisions and collisions. I think, in this case, that they almost compensate each other, if I have understood the Court of Audit correctly.

This is not my question. I think my question was very well understood by Ms. Wilmes, and that what the government calls “sub-use” is actually a blocking. It is an economy. But with that, I can understand that the government is not willing to respond more.

I had two questions. The first concerns the evolution of tax revenues. The decline in revenue in the first quarter of 2016 presupposes a difference of 1 billion compared to the previous year. The second point is the budget schedule. Confirm that there will be no budget conclave for the 2017 budget before the holidays? These are two very simple questions.

As for the budget calendar, I repeat that the only deadline that matters is October 15. I said it, I repeat it. It was also stated that the government would decide on its own order of work. A little patience. These things will be decided. The most important thing is to be able to deliver the draft budgetary plan and the budget on time. I think that’s what needs to prevail in the discussion.

The answer is roughly the same with regards to revenue. For example, regarding excise duties, Mr. Laaouej, I explained in a committee that people bought alcohol in October, before the increase. The figures were very low at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year. However, there is a sharp increase in the figures from April.

With regard to the impact of VAT attacks, we are analyzing the figures. For the rest, you know that in terms of recruitment, we have introduced the minimum interest rate, because necessarily, there is an effect of almost zero interest rates, to catch that time that has become structural in revenue.

You are right, there are a lot of things to do. We follow them. But the overall aspect is not so simple.