Proposition 54K2411

Projet de loi contenant le premier ajustement du Budget général des dépenses pour l'année budgétaire 2017.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

April 27, 2017

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

Party dissidents ¶

• Stéphanie Thoron (MR) abstained from voting.

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Discussion ¶

June 28, 2017 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteurs are Mr Van de Velde and Laaouej. They refer to their written report.

I will not be too long.

We have been discussing this budget adjustment for several months now. The introduction by the ministers, the hearings of the Court of Auditors and of the European Commission, the interventions of parliamentarians in the Budget Committee have dragged things in length. I wonder to what extent we could not imagine a procedure that would bring together the budget discussions. We are talking about repeats. This may be interesting, but we should organize ourselves better to shorten the review of adjustments and budgets. The period is indeed too long.

The problem with this adjustment is that it presents us with numbers and trajectories that are overtaken by new considerations, which are not yet integrated. This is not a reproach, but a constatation. I think in particular of the Thematic Council of Ministers, which has budgetary consequences.

The Minister of Budget explained to us that it would not necessarily be for this year, although cybersecurity has allowed some budget slides. In any case, for 2018-2019, we are wondering what will be the effects on the budget. So many aspects that we were unable to address during the discussions on budget adjustment.

Another example is the ambitious investment plan developed by the government. Here too, I think that this can only be accompanied by a revised multiannual trajectory, in particular in order to identify the modes of its financing.

What about the corporate tax reform? It was legitimate to question the two ministers on this subject during the review of the adjustment. We have been many to ask the government if it is considering this reform in a neutral budgetary framework. We were not answered. I think arbitration is still going on within the government. This is the first arbitration. Therefore, I cannot conceive that the government is advancing on this ground without having previously resolved the question of the possible fiscal neutrality of the corporate tax reform.

Whether you do it in a neutral way or not, the impact will obviously be different and not negligible on the budget trajectory. At this point, we still have no answer and today we are being asked to discuss the budget adjustment.

I could multiply the examples that led me to say that the budget adjustment was obsolete. It should not be seen as a form of political aggression, but simply a concern over the prospect of having to conduct a debate on unstable figures.

It is true that the budget is made of projections but nothing prevents us from trying to get as close as possible to reality, whether for 2017 or for the coming years.

It is also important to remember that the government has decided to postpone the balance. It is recalled that the government agreement of the current majority had sealed on the will to ⁇ balance in 2018 by explaining that the brutal measures taken in 2015 – index jump, reduction of social contributions with the known impact on the financing of social security, increase in the price of medicines, cuts in public spending – would generate a dynamism of our economy that would result, he said, both in job creation and in the revival of growth.

As far as growth is concerned, it is well known that we remain below the euro area average; there seems to me to be an unresolved and in any case unexplained concern.

On employment, I will reserve the discussions for later. But remember that between the projections that existed in 2014 and the projections of the Plan Bureau, the differences are only tens of thousands. I ask the government to put this in parallel with the cost, for workers, of the index jump on one side and the “defining” of social security induced by the reductions of social contributions on the other.

I’m not sure that overall, it can be considered a success but again, I repeat, it’s a debate that we have had many times in the committee. I will not repeat the same thing every time.

Another point that seems important to me is that today we have the Federal Plan Bureau’s forecasts on what the deficit will be at the horizon of 2019 with, according to the Federal Plan Bureau, an effort of nine billion to be made if we actually want to reach the balance in 2019. I admit that the National Bank is talking about eight billion. That would be between 8 and 9 billion. We will see. This remains colossal! That’s why I ask it solemnly, without arrogance: does it really fit into the government’s intentions to reach balance in 2019? I have not yet received a response. We know that in 2018, this is impossible, but in 2019, do you plan to reach the balance, or do you think that it will probably be better to leave the bill to others, to the next government? I also believe that there is a need for clarity.

For the rest, you know the criticism I have addressed to you. The disengagement of the state is only a façade. We are back to the public debt situation in 2013. You can’t really say you’re convincing about public debt, just as you’re still not convincing about estimating tax revenues. So there is a major problem: it is that the famous task force that was to be set up and that we have called for our wishes many times is still not there. I can conceive that this involves public procurement procedures and that it takes time but finally, it is still not there. Therefore, there is a constant doubt that weighs on the valuation of tax revenues. After three years, it seems to me that, more than facing a delay, we are facing a defect and it is high time, Mr. Minister, to remedy it.

The Court of Auditors once again raises a major doubt on the assessment of the performance of a number of positions, in particular the alleged economy derived from notional interest due to the decrease in the OLO rate: 325 million euros. Both the Court of Auditors and the European Commission raise doubts. These 325 million are subject to caution.

You don’t know them, you keep them. Similarly, regarding the additional 52 million on tax regulation, the Court of Auditors kindly tells you to be careful as this would imply a doubling of the records registered. I have to add the €100 million, which is still in doubt, concerning both regulated investment funds and specialized investment funds. The total of these three positions amounts to 500 million euros of revenue which can be doubted.

This amount, while you make an effort of 870 million on this exercise, when you take into account your buffer as well as additional efforts, represents two-thirds. Two-thirds of the effort is based on revenues that are doubtful. It is much. I think your budget adjustment again lacks seriousness, but this is not the first time. You are apparently accustomed to presenting files that do not hold the road. Unfortunately, I have to regret it and say it once again.

What about your discussions with Europe? Have you finally clarified whether or not to accept the flexibility clause? There is a sum of 426 million euros. Do you have any additional information to provide us today?

I would like to come to another point that is also alarming. My colleague Frédéric Daerden talked about this to you during our exchanges in commission. The alternative financing of social security is deteriorating. In particular, there is a decrease in the revenue of pre-accounting furniture. Mr. Minister, what about it? You have raised the pre-account rate for furniture, but the revenue is decreasing. Is it a reduction in the tax base? If this is the case, it may be explained by a decrease in dividends, but then, give us the numbers. Or it is explained by the fact that your famous liquidation reserve, which is a machine to decrease the pre-count furniture by tax engineering, is running well. I told you from 2015-2016 to pay attention to your liquidation reserve. This measure will result in a structural decrease in the yield of the furniture pre-account.

This will result in a deterioration of the tax justice we are committed to. Per ⁇ others in the majority are also attached to it and I think in particular of CD&V. But above all, there is a decrease in the financing of social security. This means that it is not enough to face-to-face increase the furniture pre-count rate to please the CD&V partner. The erosion of the taxable base must be avoided. It makes no use to increase the rate if you put in place devices that will empty the base of all its substance. I am very afraid that we will face this phenomenon with the famous liquidation reserve of which no one speaks anymore, but which I have not forgotten, and which will still be the subject of a number of discussions.

I will come to another point, dear colleagues. We see no trace, in the budget adjustment, of the famous mobility budget! Per ⁇ it would be time to discuss this issue. Mr. Minister of Finance, I know that you need to coordinate with the Minister of Employment, also with the Minister of Mobility, ⁇ . Where are we? Does Mr. Reynders’s big announcement, saying that an additional net €450 would be allocated to the workers, make any progress? Is the fiscal framework ready? I do not see anything in the adjustment, which suggests that this file does not yet know progress.

Mr. Minister of Finance, I would like to hear you also about inflation. This actually calms up. But we are coming out of a peak, two months ago, ⁇ impressive which was able to tell a large part of the specialized press that we had, in Belgium, an inflation rate among the highest in Europe. This resulted in the degradation of the purchasing power which does not compensate for the increase in the available income that you put on your credit, but of which I will make you notice that in reality it marries a perfect elasticity. It can be seen through previous periods: there is one that is taken by your government for every economic growth, no matter how low it is. Whoever says a little economic growth, says mechanically increasing the available income.

However, we had observed, due to the slowing economic growth in Belgium in terms of comparison with other countries of the euro area, that the available income had tightened. It takes back a little, but it would make a shortcut than to say that it is thanks to your policies.

and no! There is a natural elasticity between available income and economic growth, as there is a natural elasticity between tax revenues to personal tax and economic growth. Do not attribute macro-economic mechanics to results in terms of the evolution of the available income.

But back to inflation. You may have available income that increases, but if you have a galoping inflation, it will neutralize it. In other words, the result for people is nothing! There, too, you might need to see how you break down the explanation of this inflation. This is a problem that does not leave us worried.

Another point, Mr. Minister, which is addressed to you more directly. This is the situation in the SPF Finance. It would be good, on the occasion of the budget adjustment, to make a report of the places of discussion with the agents of the SPF Finances. According to them, they would lack the means necessary to carry out their verification and control tasks. You will argue that this is a problem of organization and social relations within the department. and no! This is a problem with the budget. A tax administration that doesn’t work well, where there’s roughness, movements, is an administration that won’t keep its commitments at the level of establishing and collecting taxes, that is, at the level of revenue. It is time, Mr. Minister, to tell us what is going on.

Would I dare ask you to comment on the evolution of the case of a “fairer taxation”? I do not know exactly what the position of the different partners of the majority is. Value added or not? Mr. Dewael stated, not long ago, that this was a bad measure. I feel like Mr. Beke has relaxed a little. Where are we today? Will you, at the beginning of 2018 or on the occasion of the corporate tax reform, come up with a tax reform plan to make it fairer?

I dare hope that you will not again decrease direct taxes to increase indirect taxes. Because it is useless! Reduce direct taxes, yes, as long as they are financed and that it does not affect public spending and social security. But, if it is for, again, to lower direct taxes to increase VAT or excise taxes, it will be like giving one hand to take over from the other, transforming progressive taxation into regressive taxation.

If this is the case, it is not more fair. and no! The question is this: what do you do with the financial income and capital gains plates? This is where they are waiting for you. If there is nothing on the menu, it must be said to Parliament. Stop playing hiding. I don’t know if our CD&V colleagues will have anything to say. In any case, Mr. Minister, it is legitimate for us to ask you where we are in relation to all this.

I come to another point, which is a real scandal. This is a scandal! And this is still not settled either by the budget adjustment, or by the law containing the various provisions we are talking about. You maintain the non-indexation of tax reductions for pensioners and allocators. I don’t know how much it gives you. A few tens of millions of euros? The calculation should be repeated. But do not find yourself deeply unfair to deprive pensioners, especially those who benefit from a small pension, of the indexation of their tax reduction which is now a little more than 2,000 euros. You will still seek 2% of their 2,000 euros, about 40 euros a year.

Mr. Bacquelaine is not there, but do you not think it is necessary to restore a bit of justice to retirees to whom you have already inflicted an index jump? Going to tell that we increase the minimum pensions by communicating with loud screams – I saw a Belga passing yesterday and Mr. Daerden explained it to me – and, on the other hand, ⁇ ining the non-indexation of tax reductions for pensioners is more than contradictory. This becomes a fraud, and people know it. People know it! I call on the government to take responsibility. We have submitted, in the Finance Committee, an amendment to restore this indexation immediately, to stop this injustice. I hope there will be people in the majority to support us. This becomes inappropriate and unacceptable.

On the other point, let us highlight a few positive points.

Only the Minister of Finance and Mr Van Rompuy are listening to me. I address them. With the President of the Commission and the Minister of Finance, we can already move forward.

I see Mrs. Wilmes taking notes. and laughing)

New initiatives: 60 million euros: it’s better than nothing! Indeed, 15 million for each political family: 15 million for Justice, 15 million for the police, 15 million for the non-marketer and Mrs De Block and 15 million for the energy transition and Mrs Marghem. Not much, but it is better than nothing. That being said, there is nothing about development plans related to public investments. It is still unclear how you will get out financially at the SNCB level.

At the level of justice, the Court of Auditors tells you that, only for the backward, there are 18 million euros and there are still problems at the level of prisons. 15 million is not enough. It is known that we have reached the bone and that you continue continuously to crack down on the means of Justice.

Similarly, it is explained that there is not enough money at the Régie des Bâtiments to pay the rent. How will you do? By interdepartmental provisions, as usual... These interdepartmental provisions are not the hat of Mary Poppins. We are not at Walt Disney. At some point, it stops and the boxes are empty. How will you do?

Another ⁇ sensitive and ethical issue is development cooperation. In this regard, the Court of Auditors tells you that you will not be able to fulfill all your obligations.

For all these reasons, this is an adjustment which is not known whether it comes too early or too late, but which is completely overtaken by events, an adjustment with a lot of uncertainty. We do not know where you are going, in particular regarding the corporate tax reform, budgetally neutral or not. What is the funding for investment plans?

Your choice not to finance the tax shift leads to 9 billion euros by 2019. How will you do? You have already postponed the budget balance and you are expected to return the bill to the future government and future generations.

Only in this adjustment, there are at least 500 million euros of revenue that do not keep the way, budget insufficiencies in strategic departments. You will obviously understand that we do not adhere to your budget adjustment. We do not agree with your budget policy. We will vote against your budget adjustment!

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, a budgetary control is always an opportunity to examine not only the figures, but also the implementation of the measures themselves. Where are we in the legislature, where are we in the legislature?

The measures a government should take in such a budget are based on the questions of where and from whom to get the money, to whom and to whom to spend it and what to do to create more sustainable economic growth. In fact, the answers and therefore the measures are quite well known. Many international economic bodies and organizations have already commented on this. There is actually a fairly broad consensus about this, on single-gangers such as Paul De Grauwe after for example. The recommendations are almost the same every year, especially for a country like Belgium. The first recommendation is to consistently save on public spending. Second, a government must reduce growth-enhancing taxes, so shift taxes to taxes on things that less disrupt growth. Third, it must activate the population, maintain the infrastructure and keep debt under control. In fact, this sounds quite obvious.

How do we deal with these recommendations in Belgium? The implementation of such measures in this regard takes time. Such measures are also courageous measures. They are, by the way, the measures that the government has consistently implemented since its entry into office.

For example, the government has already achieved a reduction in public spending compared to an unchanged policy of 2% of GDP. This is a pretty strong figure, a good start. I think that is also the way forward to move forward. The tax shift meant not only a shift, but also a reduction of 8 billion euros, away from the growth-driven taxes on labour – it is harmful when you tax labour – to consumption. Together with the index jump and the reform of the 1996 Act, this has made our companies again competitive and re-balanced the trade balance. This was accompanied by a reduction of the bridge pension, the introduction of flexi-jobs and the introduction of activation plans for long-term unemployed. In this way, we also fulfilled that other recommendation, namely to activate the population.

Together with the investment pact to re-invest in infrastructure, this all results in a reduction in the structural deficit, which at the time of the government’s inauguration amounted to more than 3%. With this budgetary control, it was reduced by more than two-thirds to 0.84 %.

It is also interesting to look at the concept of structural deficit. The concept of structural deficit is not so old in the history of our country. In the past, we only looked at the nominal deficit. What is the nominal deficit? This is simple: the difference between the amount spent in a year and the amount received. The structural deficit also looks at the longer-term impact of measures. What is the impact of promises made today but paying in five years?

Then it is interesting to compare with the past. For example, let’s look at the 1990s and 2000s, when there was a thriving economy. Today, growth is finally slowing a little again, but 1.6%, the European average, can absolutely not be called a high-conjuncture in a historical perspective. This is in sharp contrast to growth in the 1990s and 2000s. During that real high-conjuncture, there was no more than one budget nominally balanced and even that is questionable. At the same time, numerous promises were made for, for example, vacation schemes with the build-up of pension rights, measures that will have to be paid in the future. The pensions received at the time are paid by the current government and the subsequent governments. The bills that were made then are now paid. The result is that one actually has to look at a kind of implied state debt. If you put together all those promises – it’s an interesting figure that was recently released – we have today a debt of no less than 655% of GDP.

These figures were established in a study by the University of Freiburg, published by the Bank for International Payments. That is the debt we have borne, not so much in a loan with banks and bondholders. That is the guilt, the promises we have made to our own people. Only in pensions there is a pit of EUR 1 557 billion, or 379 % of GDP.

These are hallucinating figures. That guilt could have been avoided when the first signs of aging occurred. We all knew how many children were born and how many people would retire. Unfortunately, the measures were limited to something à la Silver Fund.

Fortunately, today we have a different policy. Today there is a policy that addresses these problems, which guarantees the affordability of our pensions. Only with the reform of the pension systems will we have halved the aging bill.

You may not have seen it immediately in the budget for a year, but it is a measure for which not only our children but also our grandchildren will be grateful to us. They would have to pay the invoice.

Europe also acknowledges the importance of these measures. At that time, the ageing bill did not arrive. It was like the state debt, which some PS members thought would disappear by itself, since it had also come by itself. There is nothing to do with the ageing bill.

Europe saw that problem and set a medium-term objective for Belgium, as it was so poor with all those promises it would still have to fulfill. In the medium term, Belgium had to ⁇ a structural surplus of 0.75 % on the budget. These are the surpluses we would have to make in order to pay for our aging.

Thanks to the measures taken in this legislature, Europe has stated that the medium-term objective was quite rigorous. The measures have such an impact on the affordability of the invoice that the mid-term target was reduced to 0 %.

In the same way, the OECD placed us among the best students of the class last week, where it is about countries that implement its recommendations most consistently.

The results of the policy on the implementation of numerous recommendations on which there is economic consensus are seen every day. The participation rate is at a historic high. The level of effectiveness is more than 69%, which we have not seen for a very long time. The unemployment rate is lower than it has been for years and even falls below the structural unemployment rate. You know that when you dive under the structural unemployment, you get a pressure on the wages due to shortages in the labour market. The shortage of the right people and workforce then creates a rising pressure on wages. Today, we are down with our unemployment rate. The OECD expects our unemployment rate next year to even fall to a level before 2007, before the banking crisis, for the difficult years.

At the same time, there is a record number of startups, there is a historically low number of bankruptcies, companies are again competitive and the trade balance is finally back positive. We are exporting more goods and services again and importing more wealth again, which is welcome here. I repeat a title from the newspaper, very exemplary: “The structural deficit is melting away.”

In addition, in such a budget, we should not only look at the hard economic figures, the cash: how much comes in and how much goes out? What we do, of course, is also done to strengthen the prosperity and well-being of the population. Also for the well-being indicators in the OECD reports, we do much better than the average. The OECD’s Better Life Indicators. At nine out of eleven of these indicators we do better than the rest. We know the smallest wage difference between men and women in the developed world. Is there a wage difference and is it too big? and yes. It is the smallest wage gap between men and women in the developed world. We should be proud of that. That is not the realization of this government alone, absolutely not, that must be acknowledged. I just wanted to point out that we are absolutely not doing it badly in that area.

The available income of the people is increasing. That is a merit of this government. The poverty risk decreases. That is also logical. The best barrier against poverty is work.

If you look at the differences between the regional governments, you can clearly see the differences in policy. The composition of this government is similar to that of Flanders, while the government in the south of the country has a completely reverse composition. In Flanders today we see a shortage of workforce. Unemployment is lower than the balance. We have a shortage of workforce and a balanced budget. The rate of participation is really up to Scandinavian proportions. Brussels and Wallonia have other records, unfortunately in terms of unemployment. There is an exploding government deficit in 2018, a Southern European unemployment and a participation rate that had actually led to the bankruptcy of social security without the transfers, without the import of Flemish tax money. Per ⁇ one should dare to think of Greek measures for a Greek government, taking over control and making the transfers conditional.

That is the state of the country. This is the state of this budget control. If one looks at the longer term and takes into account the promises made and the reforms carried out, one can actually say that this is one of the first budgets in years, for decades, that is balanced and that ensures that we no longer allow future debts to rise and explode. That is the power of the structural reforms we are carrying out, that is the power of change. I thank you.

This is a budget adjustment, not a budget. Therefore, we should not try to find what is not there. The reforms have been implemented from the initial 2017, and the subsequent reforms will be implemented in the initial 2018.

This first adjustment, in any case, confirms our government’s willingness to support job creation, increased purchasing power and competitiveness of our country, in order to ensure long-term financing of our social security. No new taxes, no new savings for the citizen, and the government – Mr. Laaouej noted – has even gone further by providing additional margins for police, justice, non-market sector, public service and renewable energy.

It is not enough, we hear it, we see it. But this testifies to a clear will, a vision and the establishment of long-term perspectives: you don’t spend the money you don’t have. It is not everywhere the same.

Furthermore, this adjustment demonstrates budgetary prudence with the maintenance of a margin to deal with possible variations in tax revenues. In the same spirit of caution that the Minister of Budget monitors, the figure held for growth projections is 1.4, while international organizations forecast 1.6 growth.

The budget results and the limited effort of this adjustment testify to a positive economic dynamic implemented in particular by this government. Structural reforms are gradually yielding results. The context of this boost in growth and massive job creation clearly and positively influences the 2017 fiscal year. The choices made, our choices, are the right ones!

The Monitoring Committee of 20 June last year, prior to the publication of its July report, has already communicated to the Minister of Budget a local status of the 2017 budget situation. Even if the adjustments were made some time ago, we now see that there are new parameters and recent assessments. There is a tendency to rise on the side of tax revenues, as well as a control of public spending, which is not surprising when we know the quality of the Minister of Budget.

Thank you for applying the Minister of Finance. It’s perfect, we need room drivers!

In terms of deficit, the Court of Auditors stressed in its report that the structural improvement of 1% for 2017 was higher than those achieved in previous years. The nominal balance and the structural balance are improving and this now seriously distances us from the 3% hazardous zones.

The path that has been taken since 2014 is important. There is a real positive evolution compared to the past, because our government is infusing a new policy and is based on a realistic budget that manages to find a balance between fiscal prudence, structural reforms and new investments. Many parameters are moving in the right direction and this is confirmed by independent bodies. Thus, for growth, like the National Bank, the Federal Plan Office upgraded its growth forecast to 1.6% instead of 1.4% in February 2017. We are above the 1.5% figure planned by the European Commission.

What is reassuring is that all this comes from the support of domestic demand and in particular private consumption and business investment. This is a sign of consolidating the confidence of companies in economic prospects and outcomes.

As the National Bank points out in its new June 2017 report, there is clearly a positive impact of the tax shift whose next effects on wages will occur in January 2018. The increase in available income, of course, boosts our growth.

When it comes to job creation, the results are also there. Forecasts are constantly revised upwards. The Federal Bureau of the Plan forecasts, over the five-year period, the creation of 260,000 jobs, which is a record. The good holding of the job market is confirmed by the high level of vacancies in companies. Read the Eurostat reports on this issue.

This dynamic of the labour market helps to reduce the unemployment rate and the forecasts are at 6.8% for 2017 and 6.6% for 2018 with, on the part of the National Bank, the prospect of a significant increase in the employment rate to 70.2% in 2019. This is a very favorable development.

The Plan Bureau emphasizes that purchasing power in 2017 and 2018 will be supported by the numerous job creation. It highlights the high level of confidence of households and in particular the confidence in the situation of the labour market. It should also be noted, and it will please the Minister of SMEs, that there are twice as many people who create their business and who settle as independent. Business creation has never been so high, and there have never been so few bankruptcies.

According to the OECD 2017 report, Belgium was one of the countries with the most reduced tax pressure in 2016. So we want to continue on this path: reform to create more activities, more jobs and to finance social protection in the long term, while ensuring fiscal consolidation at the service of all citizens.

The OECD Secretary-General confirmed eight days ago that our macroeconomic policy framework is strong and has been strengthened in recent years by numerous major reforms regarding labour taxation, pensions, corporate regulation and support for self-employed and SMEs. This is a statement from eight days ago.

Mr. Piedboeuf, we talked yesterday about the sensitive topic of tax cuts that benefit pensioners. You know that they benefit from a basic reduction of just over 2,000 euros and the government has previously decided to freeze the indexation of this tax reduction, which represents an annual loss of 40 euros for those affected.

You tell us about the pensioners, the purchasing power, the government balance sheet, which you think is right. Do you agree that such a measure unfairly, indistinguishably, regardless of the level of pension, affects a large number of our pensioners? Do you not consider that this adjustment can be used to stop this injustice and to restore indexation? How do you position?

Your argument in the commission was that this was done in the past and that the measure was extended. Do you stick to this logic? Does the MR group assume the fact of ⁇ ining the freeze of the indexation of tax reductions for pensioners?

The MR group, like the majority, ⁇ ins its line because, as I just told you, we don’t spend the money we don’t have. We have a clear line of sanitation, improvement of economic activity. And when we have restored this economic activity, when we have continued to create jobs, then we will find margins that will allow us to distribute, what you usually do but that must be picked up after!

The OECD Secretary also confirmed that we were among the top performers...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to react to what Mr. Piedboeuf said.

If I understand correctly, the few tens of millions of euros you are going to seek from pensioners are a decisive element for your economic policy, the revival of demand and the sanitation of public finances. So your entire budget building – which is known that in reality it does not cease to lead to abysses since you have to find 9 billion by 2019 – your entire economic policy would also rely on the non-indexation of tax cuts for pensioners, that is, on a few tens of millions that you will take from pensioners who have strictly nothing to ask anyone.

You say we don’t spend the money we don’t have. This is not what you do. You will find it in the pocket of the pensioners. You are depriving them of part of their income. This is what you do. It is easy to talk with the money of others, Mr. Piedboeuf!

Mr. Laououej, what you say is extraordinary. You say, on the one hand, that you will need to find 9 billion euros and, on the other hand, you say that you need to continue spending. Someday you will have to explain to me how you get to such thoughts!

Mr. Piedboeuf, for example, listening maybe a little more to your partners of the majority, the CD&V who, they, offer you to move forward in the field of taxation more just.

Well, we can get it!

and wait! They seem to have a lot of good ideas but, apparently, ...

We too!

They are visible from adjustment to adjustment. You want additional means, listen to your majority partners and leave the pensioners in peace! You’ve gotten them enough: an index jump – remember 2015 – which is irreversible!

This has been your topic since the beginning of the legislature.

Look forward to Mr. Piedboeuf! The rise in the price of medicines also strikes pensioners, the increase in electricity VAT strikes pensioners without being compensated by a decrease in income taxes and, in addition, now, the maintenance of the freeze of the indexation of tax reductions! We must stop now! There is an anti-pensioner obsession in the head of your government and I don’t understand that someone like you, who has a lot of common sense, continues to accept that pensioners are mocked in this way. This is unacceptable!

Absolutely not, and you know it very well! You know, we have increased pensions.

Mr. Piedboeuf, there is also a request from Ms. Smaers.

I understand from the perspective of the opposition that it must lead opposition. The duty of the opposition is to oppose. However, I do not understand the rhetoric of colleague Laaouej when he challenges the existence of justice in taxation and with regard to pensioners.

I quickly fall from my chair, Mr. Laauouej. You apparently missed the debates in the Committee on Business this morning, and yesterday in the Committee on Social Affairs, when there was approved a bill to increase the minimum pensions of both employees and self-employed.

This government has, among other things, a very extensive wealth envelope — I must return to it at every budget discussion, Mr. Laaouej — which is larger than the wealth envelope of previous governments and which is very well used for the lowest benefits, the lowest incomes, the lowest pensions. The lowest pensions are again raised, for self-employed and self-employed workers by 1.7 %. If you do not take this into account, you miss the reality. The study of the National Bank of Belgium, which we repeatedly refer to, assumes an increase in the available income of the families. There is no distinction between employees and pensioners. Even pensioners do not lose their available income. In short, I do not understand exactly where the opposition continues to get this without applying the right arguments.

Again, justice is not just in the income of retirees. We increase the purchasing power of the lowest incomes. The lowest incomes, including pensions, go ahead. The tax shift has resulted in a whole shift and has resulted in a significant reduction of the burden for the lowest incomes. The job creation benefits us from investing in the lowest incomes. In addition, there is the wealth envelope, of which 75% went mainly to the lowest incomes. So, saying that this government does nothing, or does little for retirees and lower incomes, and that there is no justice to be found in politics, the reality is violence.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a small correction regarding the lies about the price of the medicines. For this I have taken the figures of the FOD Economy. Since the beginning of this legislature, including all advantages and disadvantages, the prices of the medicines have fallen by 2.2%, with a reduced patient invoice of 30 million euros.

Per ⁇ this can be corrected in certain arguments. It is important to conduct the discourse based on facts and not on populist lies

I agree that the discussion should be based on figures.

Mr. Smaers, the previous government has not made an index jump. Should I explain it again? With an index jump, prices rise, but wages do not rise with it. The previous government did not do that, so stop telling the story of the wealth envelope.

The second correction, Mrs. Smaers, is the following. I said very clearly this morning that it is our government, but that I didn’t really choose it. The government you have elected has not raised the minimum pensions. She has chosen to increase the minimum pensions on the condition that one has a full career of 45 years. This is what this government has decided.

There was a week difference. One week, rightly, the ceiling for the highest pensions has been raised. I say again: rightly. The next week it would have been logical to raise the lowest pensions as well, but that was done on the condition of a full career.

The social partners, colleagues, have corrected this error in the IPA. They decided to devote a part of the wealth envelope to it and not to apply the criterion of the full career of 45 years. That is what happened, Mrs. Smaers. This government is still unable to fully implement what the IPA has decided with employers and workers. After all, there is still a distinction between those who have a full career of 45 years behind and those who do not.

So don’t say that this government has done something for the lowest pensions. No, Ms. Smaers, the IPA and the social partners have spent a part of the wealth envelope on it and – that is true – the government has taken over that and poured it into a bill, with a difference, however, between who has a career of 45 years and who does not have it.

I would like to correct some of your points, Mrs. Temmerman.

First, I refer to the statements of your former colleague and Chamber member, Johan Vande Lanotte. When he was still a minister, he himself also made adjustments to the index basket, allowing one to de facto realize an index jump. By adjusting the thermometer, a de facto index jump was achieved. Did prices rise then? and yes. Has it been noticed? The thermometer was simply adjusted so that one would not notice it, but one of course felt it.

Second, you forget that our index jump was a social index jump. The lowest pensions and benefits have not experienced an index jump at all. The index jump was mainly carried out to make our labour market again competitive. However, the lowest pensions have not experienced an index jump. Moreover, in addition to the fact that they did not experience an index jump, they received an additional pension, thanks to the 100 % benefit from the wealth envelope and subsequently 75 %. In addition, thanks to the socio-economic measures, we have been able to stimulate job creation to such an extent that space has been created to carry out the indexes and to give a wage increase, above the index. This has never been possible in the previous legislature.

Mr. Speaker, I am a little shocked when I hear Mr. Laaouej say that we have done nothing for pensions.

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Sir, I cannot hear you. I would like to tell you...

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Let me finish! But not ! We do not have the same vision. You always say we attacked them. On the part of the majority, we have a different discourse. I will give you numbers. From September 1st, the pensions of self-employed persons, which have been very little taken into account before, will be greatly increased. They will receive 151 euros extra per month. This is nothing, Mr. Laouej. Don’t tell me that we don’t do anything for pensions.

Mr. Laaouej probably doesn’t like the independent, that’s one thing. He defends officials, teachers, etc., for whom I have the greatest respect. But I cannot agree with his statements that we would not have taken into account pensions.

We have signaled other things. The envelope "being-being" n'aura ever been more important than that which is planned for the year 2017-2018, a savoir près de 650 millions d'euros. It seems to me that we will take and charge a part of the minimum pensions and of the self-employed. Ne dites pas d'une façon assez large que nous ne faisons rien pour les pensions. (Brouhaha is)

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But the money comes from us, Mrs. Temmerman!

I am not used to insulting people. I heard, in the mouth of Mrs. Van Camp, “populist lies.” In this context, we must greet Ms. Van Camp. He put all his vocabulary in the same sentence. Objectively, this is an achievement that we should welcome.

The Minister says we don’t like independent people. Madam, I can’t stop you from saying it. I simply say that it is not because your policies are antisocial that you must find in others vices that exist only in you. I apologize for telling you. Another statement recurring to the MR in recent times: "The previous government has not done enough for the independent."

But who was the Minister in charge of the Independents during the previous legislature? It was Mrs. Laruelle. It is not because she has left you that you must constantly overwhelm her.

I say that with the single index jump, you have been looking for more than 300 euros in the pocket of pensioners. You now explain to us that you will repair the damage you caused. There would be no more than that! For the rest, we are talking about minimum pensions. Ms. Temmerman has well deconstructed the argument. You can not at the same time say that you will work on the minimum pensions, and on the other hand maintain the freeze of the indexation of tax reductions. This is the point I want to highlight. After that, you broadened the debate and summoned your entire policy to better drown the fish; that was Mrs. Smaers’ rhetoric.

I would like to return to a particular point. Since you are for the purchasing power of pensioners and the revaluation of pensions, restore the indexation of tax reductions. In this way, you will immediately return 40 euros to the pensioners. be consistent . You are not. This is a call for consistency. I do not appeal to your sense of justice but to your sense of coherence, if it still exists.

We always follow the same logic. Our goal is not to spend the money we don’t have, but to continue cleverly doing sanitation. Whenever we make margins, we make the lowest income benefit, including pensioners. We did this through the welfare envelope. Ms. Temmerman says that is thanks to the trade union concertation. But who leads it? It is us too. We can very well discuss with the social partners.

But we have the modesty of our condition and we know that there are still challenges. We simply need to continue on the path of reforms to meet our budget objectives and our commitments at European level. The latest figures from the Monitoring Committee are all recent and indicate that the 2017 budget is on track, but that for 2018, despite positive trends, there will still be efforts to fit into the trajectory of the Stability and Growth Pact. In the short term, we know, the budget remains a challenge. The work is not finished. We must continue to make efforts, to pursue fiscal consolidation – and not austerity as Mr. Magnette is used to say –, thus enabling compliance with our commitments and obligations.

Structural reforms should not stop. Of course, we need to reform the corporate tax – the government will soon do so – and implement the National Compact for Strategic Investments as soon as possible.

In conclusion, the government is working simultaneously on fiscal sanitation and the recovery of the economy in order to be able to guarantee our social model in the long term, Mr. Laaouej. We must put our economy on the path of economic recovery and job creation.

A growing number of national and international economic organizations congratulate the Michel Government for all the reforms it has committed. The fiscal consolidation initiated since the beginning of this legislature has resulted in a continuous reduction of the structural deficit since 2014. We must continue our efforts to ⁇ balance. The road remains steep but the will, enthusiasm and results already achieved strengthen us in our vision of a better future for future generations.

We will therefore support this budget adjustment and the government. I thank you for your attention.

Mr. Pietro, there is one thing I do not doubt, that is your enthusiasm! You know it. I have said it before and I greet you.

Do you know more than us about funding the investment plan? It will not escape you that we have tried to have information; we do not have it. The proximity of your group with the cabinet of Mr. Prime Minister may allow you to enlighten us. Do you have any specific information about the investment plan? Or will it be like the tax shift, with a non-funded policy that will only aggravate debt, without thinking about how to better use the available resources, ⁇ with structural financing based on a fairer tax policy, for example?

Mr. Laouej, I will not disclose to you all the measures the government will announce. However, you know that there are also margins to make investments. In addition, you have also heard of “virtuous financing.” “Virtuous financing”, for example in mobility, is financing that can bring economies of scale, an improvement of the economic climate. We will continue, of course. I also look forward to some information that I do not have.

A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister and I had an exchange of views on the Investment Pact. The Prime Minister announced that some investments from the federal level with the available funds will be included in the multi-year investment programme in the coming years, along with private investments. After all, it is not intended to only make public investments, but in part also to work with private investments.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to reject your question. In fact, the vast majority of investments are a budgetary technical issue of the Regions and local authorities. The regions and local governments can make the largest proportion of the investments in our country possible.

The federal government will therefore definitely have to do a part, but I also think that the Regions and local governments should have the impact power to invest and shape those investments together with the federal government.

There is no reaction.

The word is now given to Mr. Van Rompuy.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. and Mr. Minister, colleagues, Mr. Laaouej, you say that the budget control is a non-event because nothing actually changes. Well, something fundamental has changed. When we conducted a fiscal control last year, we were experiencing a decline in tax revenues and an economic growth that barely exceeded 1%. The budget context has now completely changed. There is an economic spring in Europe and also in Belgium. Who would have ever thought that this legislature would have created 220,000 jobs in five years? This can be narrowed by saying that the number is slightly below the average in Europe, but it is a huge breakthrough, even given an economic growth of 1.6%, which could create 50 000 jobs. It was previously argued that a 2% growth would be necessary to stabilize employment. Now we are already seeing a huge increase in the number of jobs and in 2019 the employment rate will be 70%.

One can, of course, say that this is the European context, that the government has nothing to do with this, but if the reverse was the case, if we lost 50 000 jobs, if we had no employment policy, then you would be the first to say that the government has failed. But she has taken her responsibility, with that index jump, which is of course socially critical, but he has increased competitiveness, with lower social contributions, with the law on competitiveness, with the salary law. This causes employment to grow.

Employment is growing faster in Flanders than in Wallonia. We must also say that. Let’s look at the statistics. If we look at the employment growth by region, Flanders is above the average. Well, that is another discussion. The employment rate is increasing.

The point that we often disagree about is the real income increase of the families. You have always challenged that. Well, look at the National Bank’s report, look at the National Bank’s spring forecasts, the real income increase of families will be 1.5 % in 2017, 2.3 % in 2018 and 2.2 % in 2019. We have a real increase in incomes. Who could have thought that a few years ago? With an economic growth of 1.6%, the real income of households increases by more than 2 % in 2018 and 2019.

Mr. Van Rompuy, we have often had discussions about the evolution of the available income. Over the past two years, we have observed either a staggering or a stability. This is abnormal, because in general, even when you have some growth, you have an increase in the available income insofar as the production factors reward all economic actors. In other words, you have a mechanical increase in household income.

I pointed to a tasting and a slowdown, but which differ from those of previous periods. I speak in relative terms, in other words, referring to an evolution of interest rates. You are speaking of ⁇ low growth rates. This is something that was not going well.

Then, we witness a regain of the income available in face figures. Mr. Van Rompuy, do you consider inflation – which is higher in Belgium than in other countries – when you speak of an increase in net income?

It is about real figures, income increases, where inflation, of course, does not fit. That is the definition of real. Inflation is the overall index of consumer prices. Some of the invoices you are talking about are in that index.

Mr. Laaouej, be glad for five minutes that the employment will undoubtedly increase by 210 000 units, that the families are making real progress, that these efforts have nevertheless served something.

Let me finish my reasoning for a moment, Mr. Laououej.

Moreover – Ms. Smaers has already pointed out – the government does not do social degradation. Many elements demonstrate this. The tax shift is mainly for the low wages. The living wage will increase by 6%. If the index jump is deducted, it is 4%.

We discussed the minimum pensions, the wealth envelope, the small pensions. Social spending has increased by 10 million euros in this legislature.

In her presentation, the Minister of Budget also stated that social expenditure for disability, pensions and unemployment increased from 19 % in 2011 to 20,8 % in 2016. So social spending is going up. Social security is also currently at an extremely high level in percentage of GDP, namely 25.3% according to the statistics of the National Bank.

Therefore, it is not correct that the government has created employment and a higher real available income at the expense of the lower income classes. Many indicators prove the opposite.

Mr. Van Rompuy, you tell us that the available income is increasing. But what is the share that goes to the income of capital and what is the share that goes to the income of labour? This is the question that must be asked, because the available income concerns all incomes. It is important to see the ventilation between the two. How much does one go to the other?

I will give you the figures of the National Bank. If we compare the fourth quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2017 – short, more or less, since the entry into office of this government – the share of wages in the national income decreased from 53,4% to 48,3%, while capital income increased from 36,2% to 42,2%. We have more or less five or six points of GDP, or billions, that have passed from the pockets of the workers to the coffers of capital. This is the reality behind your “increased available income.”

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank colleague Van Hees, who has just pointed out something that has often sparked debate among us, namely the decomposition of the available income and its increase. This question should draw our attention.

It’s really a matter of knowing who benefits from your economic policy, Mr. Van Rompuy. Are they the households or rather the owners of capital? We should objectivize things. Mr. Van Hees has just given us indications in this regard.

I will come to another aspect, Mr. Van Rompuy. I would like to engage with you, why not in the Finance Committee, in a scientific exercise that would consist of comparing the projections of the Plan Bureau and the National Bank in 2014 with those they are developing today in terms of job creation. In other words, we would compare the two curves to determine the net balance of job creation. We would then know what, potentially, is attributable to your policy. I say “potentially” because, as you have pointed out, regional policies must obviously be integrated – especially since, since the Sixth State Reform, a large number of competencies have been transferred and the Regions have developed employment policies in accordance with their respective realities. Thus, in Brussels, with the "Youth Guarantee", quite impressive results have been achieved in terms of re-employment of young people.

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Ms. Onkelinx, who knows the numbers even better than me, will be able to give you more information.

The Walloon Region has, for its part, obviously targeted young people, but also elderly workers. There were also recorded evidence results.

This means that in the net balance, already very far away from the 220,000 you cite, it will be necessary to identify what falls under the policies - federal and regional. The figure that Mr Van Hees has just given is interesting because it should be possible to ensure that the index jump, for example, which is a punch on the wage mass or the reductions in social contributions that are reductions in operating charges, do not actually result in increases in profits and dividends rather than in additional recruitment. This is what we have told you from the beginning. We believe in targeted employment policies, but these blank checks are a mortgage that weighs on you from the beginning of your government’s entry into office. There is a decomposition work to be done.

That being said, even if we would identify the net balance – imagine 50,000, 80,000, in the best of hypotheses – we would still have to compare it with the efforts made by the federal government in terms of reducing social contributions, which are so many incomes in less to finance social security. It should be possible to identify a precise figure likely to amount to a few billion. And see, on the other hand, what represented the punch on the wage mass, accumulated each year, of the index jump - around eight billion, no doubt. Once the total of all this has been made, it must nevertheless be compared to the number of jobs created to see whether the game is worth the candle; whether the investments consented by the State justify the number of jobs created, a part of which is, anyway, attributable to the Regions. I am ready to do this exercise with you in the Finance Committee. Because shaking the figures in the forecasts of the Plan Bureau and the National Bank does not reflect the underlying economic reality and does not give a precise indication of the effectiveness of your policies. We could do the exercise. I am ready for it.

Mr. Laaouej, that exercise we can do indeed, but actually the National Bank has already made it in the annual report. The National Bank is not a right-wing-populist institution that considers everything that is liberal, blissful? Well, the National Bank’s annual report is a very balanced report. You may dispute this, but the National Bank uses the statistics of the High Council for Employment. This clearly shows that the labour market has become much more flexible and offers much more opportunities. We also discussed this in the Social Affairs Committee. Employment in our labour market has clearly entered a new phase and there is now a trend break in employment.

Let me go back to the budget control. The annual report also shows a trend breaking in the budget. In the past I have often been critical and I am, as you can see, still. We are clearly out of the danger zone. We have long flirted with a 3% deficit, but the current budget is clearly committed to a deficit reduction of 1.2%, the highest ambition in ten years. The Government, with the help of the Minister of Budget, explains in the explanatory note that the structural deficit for the federal government could fall below 1% and reach approximately 0.9%, approximately 4 billion euros. In nominal terms, it is a reduction to 1.5%, approximately 6.5 billion euros.

It is certain that the deficit will decrease. I have already talked about a trend break: we are out of the danger zone for a bit. We held extensive discussions in the committee, including the European Commission and the Court of Auditors. We also discussed the National Bank’s new study on the budget deficit. According to those speakers and the study, we should be careful. The discussion that the government will conduct in the coming weeks on the 2018 budget should also start from the 2017 figures. After all, what has happened? The corporate advance tax generates higher revenues, ⁇ 0.5 billion extra, due to the growing employment. Another issue is that the corporate tax also pays a lot more. It’s not very well known, but since 2010, corporate tax revenue has gone from 8 billion to about 14 to 15 billion.

Therefore, it is not true that corporate profits would be taxed less. We see a very strong increase there. This is also evidenced by the statistics of incoherence. In fact, in the 2017 budget control we note a decrease in the deficit, thanks, among other things, to the higher incomes from the corporate advance tax and the corporate tax.

Mr. Van Rompuy, you took the series from 2008 to today, to show the evolution of corporate tax revenue. You said 8 billion. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that there was the financial crisis of Lehman Brothers. It is no one’s fault here. This crisis has more than ticked corporate tax revenue. Before the Lehman Brothers crisis, corporate tax was around 12 billion euros. You have had a tasting that has reduced the income from corporate tax, and the phenomenon is also observable at the level of natural persons tax and consumer taxes. There was a slowdown in economic activity. Economic growth is close to zero. There was a tasting, a massive reduction in corporate tax. The start of the series in 2010 does not seem to be indicative of your demonstration. It is better to compare the evolution of corporate tax from 2014; then, I could understand. We could see whether the year-on-year increases reflect the effect of the effectiveness of your economic policy or translate, for example, on a large tax expenditure item, i.e. notional interest, a decrease in their budget cost. What would it be related to? The evolution of the rate of OLO. The OLO rate has evolved so favorably that notional interests today – it is not the Minister of Finance who will contradict me – cost almost nothing. Obviously, when you have a reduction in a tax expenditure of such a scale, you necessarily have an increase in corporate tax revenue that I will not complain about.

That’s another debate, but I just want to say that 2017 has been served by higher revenues in the companies and in general also in the corporate advance tax.

There have, of course, also been reduced incomes that have been clearly discussed with the Court of Auditors and which the European Commission also points out. The European Commission is at 0.7%. If the government wants to meet its target of 1 % structural deficit reduction for 2017, it will need to do another 0.3 % according to the European Commission. That is the famous 1.3 billion that would be needed to ⁇ that 1% deficit reduction.

The National Bank says the same. Why does the National Bank say that the nominal deficit will be 1.8 % in 2017 and not 1.5 % of the government? The National Bank says there are differences in underuse, that a number of posts such as tax regularization, real estate investment funds, VAT and fraud will yield less than intended. This explains that the National Bank is higher in terms of nominal deficit. This was also recognized by both ministers, Minister Van Overtveldt and also Minister Wilmès, who pointed out a number of issues.

Globally speaking, there is a trend break, but one must be very careful. One hears those figures from the National Bank and the European Commission, which are talking about 8 or 6 billion, and then one hears the Monitoring Committee, which is talking about 3 billion, and then one gets in the press titles such as "It will be a walk in the park" or "The deficit smells like snow for the sun".

This is not the message that we should have adopted in our committee. There is indeed a serious deficit reduction, but there is still no certainty about the effort to be made to reach a balance in 2018 and 2019.

The European Commission points out that the structural deficit could rise to 1.6 % this year. If an additional effort is made, it could be even lower. For 2018, she says we need to be careful because we have a non-funded tax shift and because the structural deficit can go up again.

The same goes for the National Bank, which says that in 2018 we will be nominally likely to reach 1.8%, with unchanged policy. The Monitoring Committee speaks of 0.9%. That is actually the double. There is a difference of about 4 billion.

We must look at these numbers all in context: nominal and structural are confused here. Unchanged policy does not mean that one is nominally engaged in the same things: there can be structural interventions that are higher year after year. We are, of course, in the coming years with an increase in employment that can lead to higher incomes, which is very important.

Nevertheless, I think – this is a personal opinion – that the macro approach of the Planning Office, of the European Commission and of the National Bank creates a huge confusion with the micro approach from the statistics of the administration and of the government. This gives the impression that certain things are being silenced. Why is that now, the National Bank says 8 billion and the government is talking about 4 billion or 3,2 billion? So we asked the European Commission on what it is based on its figures. It responded to include those figures also with the national administration, but to be more cautious than the government because it has no vision for certain measures such as tax regularization and the income from the mobile tax or VAT.

It is also a problem for the perception of the government that the statistics of the Monitoring Committee sometimes assume a level of achievement that may not yet exist. The budget is only a few months away, we still have to see what it brings.

We must not forget that this government is still facing a very difficult task. As a group, we do not give up the balance of the budget in 2019. We cannot do this because of the viability of our social system. If we do not reach primary surpluses, we will never be able to restore the state debt. If everything goes well this year, fortunately we will have a primary balance again, which has been a long time ago. If all the targets are met, we end up with a primary surplus of 0.5%. The European Commission also says that the primary balance should actually be much higher than 0.6%. That should actually be 2% if we want to reduce our debt in the future.

The European Commission has also noted that at the moment Belgium does not meet the debt criterion. We need to have a higher primary surplus. That is important. We are confronted with the sustainability or sustainability of our public finances. The reform of the pension system will be partly smooth. However, this is long-term.

We must be careful with the costs of ageing. We see this in health insurance as well. Interest rates will not always remain low. We also note that pensions cost 7.3 billion euros more over a five-year period. That is almost 1.7 to 1.8 billion euros more each year.

We must therefore balance the budget in 2019 and generate primarily primary surpluses. Otherwise, we will not be able to safeguard our social system.

Therefore, it remains extremely important that the government, even with the budget control that is there, realizes that it will not be a walk through the park and that it also does not ignore the figures as such. Behind every number lies a reasoning. It should also be noted that the primary expenditure will decline. We will fall below 50% for the first time in 2017, which should also be emphasized. However, the road is still long.

There are a number of other problems facing the government. It is about the so-called Holy Trinity or the Trinity, which is the corporate tax, the value added tax and the activation of savings. I don’t know what Open Vld means with that activation, but I’ll call them so.

This Holy Trinity will have to be discussed. For us, however, everything must be done in a budgetally neutral context. The economy must be taken into account. Therefore, lower taxes should also provide incentives for our companies. For us, the aspect of tax justice is also an essential part that must be part of all that.

In the Optima committee we have managed to take unanimous positions. One of the reasons for this was that all members of the committee adhered to the discretion. They did not preempt on certain measures. There was confidence and we came to unanimous conclusions.

Well, I would like to make an appeal to the government, the ministers, but also the party chairs. On July 31, they want countries to participate in the budget discussion and the discussion about that holy Trinity. I urge them not to make public statements anymore, because every public statement is one too much. It actually kills the intentions. I have no doubt that some people have the good intention of presenting their party, their profile, or their personal points as crucial, but this is not the case. It is our ambition as CD&V to ensure that the budget in the coming years – which will require heavy efforts, because think that one can realize those savings without pain...

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Mr. Calvo, let me finish my sentence. I hope that there will also be a good basis for the reforms in taxation, corporate taxation, tax justice and also for other things that may come on the table. If we see how we evolve socio-economically, the balance is positive. Budgetary opportunities exist due to the higher incomes that we can have thanks to economic growth and attractive employment and through a number of measures taken that will only yield in the long term and which will partly also have to compensate for the negative evolution in incomes of the tax shift. We have a historic opportunity to intervene now, but then the confidence must be clear. Parliament, at least the majority, is loyal. We have approved the budget control within the normal deadlines. We also try to take the discussions seriously. I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their reports. If you read these texts about the discussions with the Court of Auditors and the European Commission, the statements of the Members – I thank as President all those who took the floor – also give a very balanced and thorough picture. This should be the basis for the government to reach a balanced compromise in the autumn.

Mr Van Rompuy, I thank you for your ardent plea. I have seen that Ms. Wilmès is ⁇ pleased with your explicit support for the budget adjustment.

You announce a period of silence.

Per ⁇ I can make a disagree? If the committee for political renewal has failed, it is because of 101 statements of group members who provided a cacophony, so that no more results could be achieved.

I will reassure you. I am not even convinced that nothing has come out. This is a debate we will have with the Prime Minister tomorrow. I have invited other groups to discuss this today.

Regarding your announced or requested period of silence, I am, of course, very curious how long this majority will persist. The last time this was the full 24 hours.

Imagine that it really succeeds, then I propose to use the period that we have left to debate freely and freely with each other. I would therefore like to touch you, as the Bernie Sanders of this Parliament, the ambassador of Christian-Democratic tax justice.

A right-wing variant of this.

You see how difficult it is for me to support you. I will be immediately...

You will be called the new Macron, but he is back to the right.

This period of silence may soon come into being. I would actually like to know from you, colleague Van Rompuy, what the commitment is for you, as a Christian Democrat, in the field of tax justice. One cannot ignore that colleague Dewael stated yesterday that the value added tax will not come there.

I would like to touch you before that period of silence really begins, which is actually your ambition on that point.

Mr Calvo, I think that our group has repeatedly stated what some elements of tax justice can be. We have also said that this is not to take or let go, because there are many variants of tax justice possible.

The OECD is talking about the capital gains tax. The question is how this can be realized, for whom and under what circumstances. The worst thing you can do is already say what can and what can’t. That this, however, will be part of the agreement to be reached is clear to our group.

Negotiations were held on the streets last year. Last year in October, things were put on the table. This has not led to a result.

The Minister of Finance also put a corporate tax reform on the table last year, but that proposal will not be the same. It is the power of politics to come to an equation, where everyone can get his gram.

In the Optima committee, too, not everyone agreed with each component, not true Mr. Van Biesen, but we have nevertheless managed to make agreements.

Well, a budget discussion, as we have held one in the last few weeks, must take place internally. In the committee, Mr. Calvo, we have had a long and in-depth discussion. We did not always agree, but Mr. Laaouej and others have ⁇ contributed.

Here, on behalf of the members of Parliament who have collaborated, I say to the government that fiscal rectification remains a priority for us and that we want serious figures. That must be possible.

I repeat, Mr. Calvo and everyone here, one must reduce the profiling we have experienced in politics in recent months. I am not just talking about our country. This is the case everywhere, in the United States and in other countries. Politicians believe that they should profil themselves every hour of the day through Twitter or other social media, or through interviews in newspapers. They block each other and that leads to nothing.

I hope that in the coming months we can have a break in Belgian politics, a kind of quiet firmness. Quiet fortress, that is a quote from my brother, not mine. I’m getting older, I’m starting to advocate for peace in politics.

It is my deep belief that there are solutions possible, but then everyone should be prepared to put their water in the wine. We must seize the historic opportunity that we now have, with a strong economy, with a growing employment and with a budget in which there is partly a trend break. We are undoubtedly out of the danger zone, but there are still a lot of Himalayas ahead of us.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. and Mrs. Minister, colleagues, that we have allocated so much time for the discussion of a budget control is actually not common.

I think, like the previous speaker, that the negative figures of the 2016 budget path have made our committee ⁇ vigilant. This has led to the fact that we have devoted a lot of time to budgetary control.

We have heard all possible instances and I must honestly say that, unlike some others, I still feel reassured. In the end, the government was ⁇ well on track. It has the merit that it has both kept the expenditure under control and realized revenue. Both ministers have, I think, more than a good report.

Finally, the Monitoring Committee decided that an effort of 313 million euros had to be made. However, it glorifies the government that, as a good housekeeper, it has taken advantage of the opportunity to maintain the initial budget buffer of EUR 559 million in part. Collega Van Rompuy, who adheres to a good Flemish tradition, where we have been working for years with a conjuncture commission, namely 1% of the revenue from the combined and shared taxes, which gives us the possibility to capture certain fluctuations in revenue and expenditure, without having to go to budget work in September or October. I call on the government to sustain this mechanism. You can give it a name of mine, which you choose, but it must actually be an automation that on the estimated receipts a buffer is installed of a certain level that allows us to capture shocks. We congratulate you for this.

It has also given you the opportunity to take 60 million new initiatives. That was depicted here as the proverbial budget drill notes, but 60 million is for me – I’m already a little older – still 2.4 billion Belgian francs. I still feel that as a very large amount of money.

The effort was more than 900 million. You have succeeded in delivering that effort without imposing new taxes and especially through corrections and adjustments.

The discussion has not yet ended. In any case, the focus of the budget has already shifted to what will happen in 2018-2019. I must honestly say that I was also surprised at the discrepancy between the figures on the table today. There are estimates from respectable institutions such as the National Bank and the Federal Planning Bureau, which speak of 8 billion, while the own Monitoring Committee, which is usually best placed to closely monitor the evolution of revenue, speaks of 4 billion, assuming that spending remains under control. Everything, of course, has to do with what we have said several times in the committee and in the plenary session. If we succeed in pushing economic growth back to the European average – in my opinion, the ambition may be even greater given the results achieved in certain regions – it will immediately be converted into more tax revenues, which will allow us to reach the budget path.

I think it is important to maintain that ambition until 2019. We must be realistic and sober in this: the main motto is the continuation of the economic recovery, because it generates such a return effect that we eventually can ⁇ our goals without very heavy savings in a way that as many people as possible are involved in the economic happening.

Nevertheless, the effort is still very large. It will therefore – in which I agree with colleague Eric Van Rompuy – not go by itself. We are still facing a number of important challenges. We must dare to sign that ambitious project in the coming days, weeks and months. After all, I expect that in September, the classic moment when we get the new economic estimates, we will get better figures, which will allow us to bend the budget in the right direction.

Let us also assume that we keep the spending under control. There has been a lot of talk about this; Mr. De Roover can confirm that. A lot has already been saved, but with a government seizure of 50 % we cannot yet be satisfied. There is still work to be done, although each minister in his or her department must take responsibility for the matter.

In my opinion, it is time to re-work a cooperation agreement between the federal government, entity I, and the regional authorities, the Regions and the Communities, as well as the provinces and municipalities, entity II, in such a way that the effort for the commitment towards Europe is jointly delivered. I’ve done it once and I must honestly say that it’s a fun exercise. If I finally see what enters the top of revenue, both through the federal government and social security, and what remains of it as a policy space for the federal government, then everyone will understand what I mean with my discourse. I find that in certain regions some, and not the least, budget items record an increase rate of 5 to 6 %. I find it ⁇ luxurious and I wonder if we will get there that way.

We must do our budgetary work judgmentally with the focus on the recovery of our economy. This recovery is fully underway. I must honestly say—and we are here with some ancients in that field—that it has been a tricky process more than ever. You remember the fourth quarter of 2008, with the start of the banking crisis in America. In 2009, Belgium had to collect the full hit with Fortis, Dexia, Ethias and KBC. It has cost us tremendous effort and money, with negative economic growth of more than 3%. The determination that we are evolving from –3.5% to +1.6% means a giant path that has eventually been taken by many in the interim period from 2009 to 2017.

Let us now take advantage of the opportunity to further realize the goals. The job creation is indeed in full swing and now amounts to 216 000 jobs according to the National Bank of Belgium or 242 000 according to the Plan Bureau. It will be a concern for me; for the order of size of those numbers speaks to the imagination.

I am from a generation that came into the labor market in 1981. Then there was a deep economic crisis, in which all sorts of statutes were created to give people jobs. That was not the right way. Your government is trying to create jobs in the private sector through people who engage in self-employed activities and thus effectively become the engine of our economy. The result is that unemployment is falling, though not enough. We are at the lowest rate in two decades, which also speaks to the imagination.

People’s purchasing power is increasing. I listened very carefully to the out-and-coming debate. We can talk about the 0.x %. Ultimately, however, purchasing power will increase substantially during the current rule period. Let us express it in this way. It is, of course, increasing, among other things, as a result of the tax shift, which is increasingly felt.

My fourth point is that our companies are also reviving the economy. They are investing. I see it on the fields. They work at full capacity. That means that the second step they need to take is reinvesting in materials, tools and people. We must prepare ourselves for this. After all, it is the only way, as we said earlier, to ensure that the cake can grow bigger, so that we can sustain and guarantee the social security spy.

Let us also face the truth. We are indeed in Belgium with an employment rate of 67,5%, but there are very large regional differences. What I don’t want to do is point with the finger, because that doesn’t make sense. I would like to call to see how we can correct the giant geographical mismatch. Isn’t it time for the federal and regional labour ministers to come together to look at how to increase labour mobility, how to increase training and the quality of the labour force, because there is a huge demand for it? In the Antwerp region there is a huge shortage of workforce in the petrochemical industry. I would say to all friends: they pay well, why don’t we go into those jobs?

An employment rate of almost 72 % in Flanders and 58,7 % in Brussels remains unacceptable. With new measures and a global approach through flexibility and a piece of mobility, we must strive to ensure that the workforce can be exploited to give them a new future.

The call and message of this government is jobs, jobs, jobs. More than ever, this is the adagio for which we are going. We have made a calculation exercise, which is worth what it is worth, but if we are at the employment rate of the Netherlands tomorrow, it means that we must be able to fill 660 000 jobs. In this way, we can ensure that we move from a structural deficit to a structural surplus. I think this should be the ambition in the coming years, beyond party boundaries, as Mr. Van Rompuy said. Let us work together on this.

We are more than halfway. The outcome of this government looks more than positive: the government debt is reduced, the government deficit is reduced, the taxes for citizens and ⁇ are reduced, more purchasing power is provided and the companies can again invest and recruit more. Dear friends, the weze said, this is a top performance, unfortunately for those who envy it.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. and Mr. Minister, colleagues, it will not surprise you that my presentation goes in a slightly different direction than that of the last speaker, without being pessimistic. By the way, I am always very optimistic and positive, Mr. Van Mechelen, although some here do not notice that. Until then the personal test.

On the 2017 budget control, I can be quite short, colleagues. This budget control began in March, but was actually done before it was started. The budget control was announced as a flute of a penny, a walk in the park, and was completed on a draft. One was very euphoric and after hearing a number of colleagues then, that euphoria continues. Among other things, the chairman of the committee, Mr. Van Rompuy, made a number of comments, as did Mr. Van Mechelen. However, this euphoria can be somewhat tempered. Let’s take a look at some measures related to budgetary control itself.

The budget targets have already been adjusted, downward. In this way, it was not difficult to ⁇ the goals. In addition, the hot hangijzers around corporate tax and value added tax have been parked. Hopefully both will be discussed. Mr Van Rompuy has just said that he also hopes that both measures can still be realized. We will see what comes out of it. In any case, it is a missed opportunity to use budgetary control to implement both measures.

and jobs. It is true that jobs were created. I myself am very pleased with this. These jobs are very important. No one in this hemisphere will deny this. However, we also know that this does not advance the structural balance, because the economic context must be left out of it. I will return to those jobs later.

In fact, this control consists of a number of corrections. In addition, some of those corrections are very questionable. Two-thirds of the €900 million amount has Minister Van Overtveldt drawn out of his hat. Let us overcome this.

The reduction of the notional interest rate by 325 million euros. We have held heroic discussions on this in the committee. Mr. Minister, it remains very strange that those 325 million euros are now included in this budget control, because there is nothing changed in the rates and the whole method of calculation was already known in the budget formulation. It remains a big mystery why there are now 325 million euros. This amount was already known in the budget. I am not saying this, it is said by both the Court of Auditors and the administration. The administration has twice stated that it does not understand where those 325 million euros come from. The Court of Auditors has repeated this, but also the European Commission has confirmed, despite the new calculations, that it is not understandable why the 325 million euros are now being raised, since this amount was already in the original budget formulation.

The same is true of excess profit rulings. Also there, it is known since last year that they were stopped and now deliver that suddenly 100 million euros extra, while since the formulation of the initial budget has changed nothing at all. No measures have been taken to justify this additional budget. This is stated by the Financial Administration, the Court of Auditors and the European Commission.

The effect of tax regulation. The administration estimates that this will cost the federal government 100 million less than predicted in the initial format. According to the Monitoring Committee, the reason why part of the revenue goes to the Regions is due to the cooperation agreements. We all know that. Whoever comes to regularize his or her mixed capital federal will have to pass a part of the tax to the regions. The government does not want this, half less. However, the Minister adds half. On the basis of what this happens, neither the Court of Auditors nor the European Commission can declare.

Then there are the real estate funds. Again, the minister pays 50 million euros from the revenue that is predetermined by the administration. There is no calculation of this either.

Finally, the Minister sees a one-time income of 90 million euros in the mobile advance tax, while the administration has not charged that income. Again, the Court of Auditors says it has no explanation for this.

As I said before, the European Commission has big questions about those amounts. Mr. Van Rompuy just said it, she even announced that 0.3% of efforts are needed for this year; that is that famous 1.3 billion, or more than the 900 million of budget control that has now been there.

Colleagues, in other words, that budgetary control, which has yet to put a number of things back in perspective in the direction of balance, was a measure for nothing. Not only do we say that, not only the opposition says that, also important bodies like the Court of Auditors and the European Commission say that, but they do not say it in those words, that is right.

Whoever says it, in these words, is Voka, yet not the most leftist group. Voka says that this is a government in ongoing affairs, that budget control is one big disappointment: “The first half of the legislature played the government extremely well, but at the beginning of the second half I saw nothing.”

Let us now go back, as many colleagues have done, to the evaluation of the first half of this legislature, because that is what it ultimately is about.

The Economy . Economic growth, colleagues, is higher than before. That is right, and that is good, and we are all happy about it. Who would not be that? And there are jobs. Again, we also find this a very good thing. However, this also means – I think Mr. Van Rompuy and also Mr. Van Mechelen have referred to it – that one can no longer use the economic context to avoid serious budgetary control and to avoid improving budgetary performance.

This is also said by the European Commission. The European Commission says literally: “The continuous improvement of macroeconomic conditions, however, means that they can no longer be considered as a major mitigating factor in explaining the gap from the prospective debt benchmark.”

Colleagues, we can argue long about the cause of the additional jobs. The most important thing is – it also applies to me and my party – that the jobs come. It is a fact that we are still systematically below the average European growth, including in our job creation, and that is not normal. In the previous legislatures we were above the average, but now below the average. We have the same picture in employment. Again, I am very pleased that there is more employment, but it remains also a fact that employment in the period 2012-2014 evolved annually by an average of 0.3% better than employment in the euro area, in very difficult economic conditions, which Mr. Van Mechelen has also just mentioned. Now that percentage is lower.

Mrs. Temmerman, do you know the story of the statistician who drowned in a river of an average half a meter deep? This is, of course, because it is working with averages, which means that it is not the same everywhere.

You should not only look at the numbers in their totality, but also to the underlying basis of those numbers, to the underlying differences in those numbers.

Let’s take a closer look at the job creation figures. It is true that the previous government created jobs; no one will deny that. The current government also creates jobs. It is not about the same jobs. The job creation of the previous government was mainly due to an increase in government employment and subsidized employment. Therefore, these are not still worthless jobs, because I have all respect for those people. I think we are rightly investing a lot of money in education and health care. The workers in these sectors make very valuable contributions. However, the summary of the story is that those jobs, even if they are worth it, cost tax money. This is the job creation of the current government. This is mainly about job creation in the private sector. Companies are creating jobs, not the government. However, the government creates the framework, the policy within which companies can grow and create jobs. This private job creation is about jobs that generate tax money.

That is sustainability. A job is a job. That can be a big difference. The basis for job creation is fundamentally healthier than in the previous government. That is one thing.

Second, when it comes to growth in general, if you let government spending out of the pan, you also create growth in the short term, but that is a boomerang. That goes back, because afterwards you will have to pay those costs as well.

Many other European countries have experienced slightly lower growth than Belgium in recent decades since the financial crisis because of reforms and austerity.

Thanks to the reforms they have carried out, they have created a base, allowing them today to take a flying start and in terms of growth are much stronger than Belgium. The best example is the Netherlands, which has experienced a severe recession due to the crisis, which has gone deep in terms of reforms, but which today has a budget surplus thanks to the reforms it has implemented.

In Belgium, we have only started implementing reforms in the last two to three years. We have been lagging behind because in the previous legislature too much was spent on public employment. We are now focusing on private employment. This is the path to sustainable growth and sustainable sound public finances.

I would like to add only one element.

We need to compare apples with apples. A good example is comparing Belgium and Flanders with the Netherlands. We had other mechanisms that made the crisis feel less intense among our employees. I will give an example. We have systems in which people were temporarily unemployed, the technical unemployment.

At the time when the economy attracted, these people were able to convert their technical unemployment back into labour. In the Netherlands, those jobs were lost and people were subsequently recruited. If we purify this statistically, we will not get far from each other.

It is strange that your party in the previous legislature did the comparison with the countries around us in terms of employment, and we are now suddenly not allowed to do so.

I want to say something about these jobs. Once again, job creation is very important to us, because we are pretending that is not the case for us. This is very important and we are very happy that this is happening. However, we must, first of all, still see if the jobs created by the current government are actually sustainable jobs, because flexi jobs are not sustainable jobs. I think we agree on this. We will also have to see in the future – I hope with you – whether it is sustainable jobs.

I come from the same period as Mr. Van Mechelen. Almost all of my generation has been able to work thanks to the government’s investments that they did at the time. It was also job creation. There are many employees who still work with such statutes. So let’s see in a few years if these jobs are really sustainable.

If it doesn’t interest you, Mr. Dedecker, you might be able to go out for a discussion. I can make a joke, but courtesy requires one to listen to each other. I try to do so as much as possible.

Secondly, we will still have to see how much of those jobs that have now been created additionally contribute to taxes, ⁇ direct taxes. If you make social contributions so low that there is almost no social contribution – you can choose it, which is worth a discussion – then the question arises whether this way will secure our social security in the future. These are all questions for the future.

It remains a fact – and we do not even have to include all European countries – that we remain below the average compared to the countries around us.

Finally, I want to talk about inflation, colleagues. Anyone who adheres to the liberal mindset must be allergic to high inflation. I do not understand it entirely. Belgium is the great inflation champion of Europe, which is not something that one can be satisfied with? Since the beginning of the government, the Belgian inflation rate is annually an average of one percent higher than in the eurozone. That’s not comparing apples to pearls, inflation is inflation.

Colleagues, the ambition was to reach a budget balance by 2018, which has been postponed to 2019. The National Bank also announced on June 13 that an additional effort of 1.9% of GDP or as much as 8 billion is needed. There is discussion about whether it is 4 or 8 billion, but also Mr Van Rompuy and Mr Van Mechelen pointed out that one should pay attention to this. Let’s make a comparison, colleagues. Do you remember what the government had to do at the beginning of this legislature? That was 11 billion. We are in half of this legislature at 8 billion. The government has not worked so well. Whether it is the 4 billion of the Monitoring Committee, remains to be seen. We know why, Mr. Van Mechelen. The National Bank, the Planning Office, the European Commission, which three agencies say it is 8 to 9 billion. You seem to find those bodies not important, but they say that.

Furthermore, the optimistic figures of the Monitoring Committee are heavily influenced by the anticipated income from corporate tax, as Mr Van Rompuy also notes. This income is not certain. We have had to recognize in recent years that these forecasts can reasonably counteract. Let us hope that it is not so.

Another very important reason for the surprising outcome of the Monitoring Committee is the one-off correction as a result of the Finance Act. Thus, such a one-off measure does not help with our structural deficit.

The ambition was to ⁇ a balance in 2018. We have already been postponed to 2019. The fact that we are moving from 11 billion euros to 8 billion euros says a lot about the fiscal policy of the last two years.

My conclusion is that the budget control in March is a missed opportunity. No measures were taken. Only corrections were made. Furthermore, these corrections are questionable. Budgetary control was also a missed opportunity, as every sensitive discussion was pushed over the long run, every time again.

The decision will be made on July 31 on two issues. We will see if the fair taxation then comes, how heavily some parties have weighed in the discussion. Everything is postponed. The mobility budget is being postponed. The green taxation is delayed.

For all these reasons, we will not approve this budget.

As an introduction, I would say that this budget adjustment is a little like our assembly this afternoon, a little clear-seeded, not quite attentive, with colleagues from the majority who overestimate a little their appreciation of this exercise.

I consider this budgetary adjustment to the image of the encephalogram of the majority, somewhat amorphous, without color, without taste, without perspective. In the Finance Committee, I said that it was already outdated by the facts because three conclaves were being announced. I have to withdraw my words because the conclaves stopped at the first. Ambitious actions were expected to question the figures of the budget adjustment, but this is not the case and it is problematic.

What are the major trends, the major structural difficulties of the budget under this government? The first concerns the Minister of Finance, it is the tax revenues. Notebook after notebook, the Court of Auditors indicates how much tax revenues are overvalued and unjustified. However, they are accepted from a budgetary point of view by your colleague, the Minister of Budget. When counting, advertised revenues do not arrive, which creates a deficit. Moreover, the effectiveness of the collection of income – I’m not talking about the increase of taxes but the actual collection of taxes – is inexistent. We are still waiting for the 600 additional agents you have announced to the Special Tax Inspection (ISI).

SPF Finance agents, month after month, denounce not only their working conditions, but also their ability to correctly collect taxes and effectively conduct the fight against financial crime. The current committees are proof of this, be it the Panama Papers Commission or the Kazakhgate Commission. They are really the poor parent and it is billions of euros of taxes due that escape the community. I’m not proposing new taxes but I ask that our state can collect what is due and fight tax fraud in its entirety.

You have inherited, Mr. Minister of Finance, the powers of Secretary of State Sleurs, whose everyone has already forgotten that she had been in charge of the fight against tax fraud. Well, we are desperately waiting for the first effective measures in your head about this. This also applies to the Minister of Justice who must be able to appoint in the right places the cadres capable of ending this tax evasion. When there is a hole in the bathtub, it should be repaired instead of opening the crane further. I think those billions that escape taxes would be useful for other policies.

A second major trend that is not contradicted by this fiscal adjustment is the social damage that is the consequence of linear economies achieved in social matters. I hear the colleagues who replicate, Ms. Smaers and others, that the minimum pensions have been raised. Yes, it is indeed necessary. These measures are supported provided that, in their translation, they respect the agreement of the social partners, which is not entirely the case. But the increase in the minimum pension does not even compensate for the other measures of economy implemented in social matters such as the index jump, the most spectacular, or, as it has been recalled just recently, the non-indexation of tax schemes of exemption for pensioners.

All this creates, little by little, a situation of growing poverty that will have costs. Mr. Van Rompuy, you are talking about the net income of the Belgians that is increasing, but I think that such an analysis can only be made by analyzing in parallel the distribution per decile of income of this increase. I do not think that one can say, as you do a little quickly, that this increase in income benefits mostly the low and middle income, which, in economics, would be the most effective. Indeed, low and middle income converts their increase in income into consumption that makes the domestic economy function, which is not the case for the highest deciles.

I also cannot share the self-satisfaction of the majority with regard to job creation. I never thought that a government would create jobs. This is the first thing I would like to correct: we can create the conditions for job creation, indeed.

There is that figure of 100,000 units of employment that you use regularly and which is not spectacular compared to previous years, which says nothing about the cost per job created. Mr. Dedecker said that, at least, these were not subsidized jobs, but on the contrary, they were. When one decides to reduce social contributions or create jobs without social contributions, from my point of view, it is subsidized jobs. There is also no question of the quality of the jobs created. Are these jobs that will allow workers to live a dignified life, settle and found a family? No, this is not the case, most often!

What is the quality of employment today? The costs of occupational diseases are seen exploding as part of a transfer between the budgets "pension" and "occupational diseases". We can see the burn out phenomenon that is growing very strongly. There is a new social category that is that of poor workers.

Mr. Van Rompuy, I prefer 100,000 more jobs than 100,000 fewer jobs. I would like 200,000 in quality and in future sectors that turn our economy because the third characteristic I can attribute to this budget adjustment is that it is lacking in positive reforms. Reforms have been announced by the majority and remain in line. We were going to reform the corporate tax and we, as environmentalists, are demanding specific measures for SMEs and self-employed people who create nearby employment and who, unlike others who benefit from extremely expensive tax niches for the budget, are almost forced to pay the nominal rate of corporate tax. We believe that removing expensive tax niches, whose economic effectiveness is more than questionable, and reducing the nominal rate to be paid by SMEs and self-employed, would make a useful job.

This reform remains on track, like all reforms relating to tax justice. One of the four components of the federal government advocates for a form of contribution on the stock market surplus. It is logical that the income of capital should also be contributed, in a gradual manner, as is the income of labour.

Another component of the government proposes to mobilize savings. Subject to analysis, this seems to us to be an interesting idea. It also remains on track, like these potentially promising projects: an energy pact, necessary to meet our climate commitments and international challenges, or all the mobility challenges.

Certainly, you can tell us that the government has announced a large public investment plan. This big investment plan is interesting from a theoretical point of view, and shows that the government also has a green component, since it is recycling! You recycle expenses that were planned, announced, including the purchase of aircraft to replace the F-16. And you call this an investment plan.

For environmentalists, this is not an investment plan. The proposals we have already made and will continue to make are aimed at mobilizing private savings and public investment capacity for projects that are structuring, meaningful. Projects that are structuring in terms of employment, that are demultipliers, that allow to solve essential problems, such as mobility. The lack of mobility due to the congestion of our cities costs billions of euros each year, in addition to polluting the atmosphere and making urban inhabitants sick.

When it comes to energy efficiency and the development of renewable energies, there is really a lot to do. Investing in innovative sectors is crucial, rather than conducting one-shot operations. Mr. Van Rompuy, I know you very attentively to what is being achieved, and I cannot understand how you accept without reacting to the fact that we are reselling a part of our capital invested by default and by coercion in BNP Paribas, without the result of this resale being affected otherwise than by the reduction of debt. You accept that we are considering putting part of Belfius’ capital on the stock exchange, without having a vision of what this bank will become today public.

I hope you are already thinking about the next budget goals. This date is in March; we are in June; it is overtaken by events.

I conclude . There are examples to be followed elsewhere in Europe. I think in particular, and I have cited it, to Germany and its investment policy in renewable energies. I think of the public capital tools that it develops to support, precisely, SMEs and self-employed individuals, to support citizens’ energy efficiency choices, to support the ecological transition. This is the public bank KfW.

Surprise me ! As part of the next budget, put on the table projects that would come out of this slightly amorphous dynamic, which would give color, taste and perspective to our budgets. This adjustment is desperately lacking; that is why we will not support it.

The word is to Ms. Smaers.

Mr. Van Rompuy has already given our presentation.

In that case, the word is now to Mr. Van Hees.

The order must be respected (Brouhaha)

If I can interrupt the PS-cdH kindnesses, I go...(Brouhaha)

Dear colleagues, Mr. and Mrs. Ministers, it is not because I go to the tribune that it will be longer! But here, there are four parts. The first is the tax receipts that, once unusual, are in a certain fog, with overvaluation. This is a recurring criticism from the Court of Auditors and the European Commission, which systematically release a series of your revenues because it is not serious, that they are based on nothing.

When you see that the revenue does not lead to what was planned, the question that arises is whether you are using a bad calculator, Mr. Minister of Finance, or if it is voluntary. For example, on notional interests, your refusal to explain yourself on the SPF Finance rating raises questions. It is also known, for example, that on the transparency tax, there is an organized and voluntary non-transparency on its revenues. This is classic!

This government also pursues a triple unfair tax shift. Injustice, first, because one reduces a progressive tax, the tax of natural persons, to increase proportional taxes: VAT, excise taxes, furniture pre-count... One reduces a tax more or less just to increase unjust taxes. It is then unjust because only 20 percent of the reduction in the tax on natural persons benefits the less wealthy 50 percent of the population, while the remaining 80 percent goes to the richest 50 percent. Finally, this is unfair due to the intrusion of the tax shift: a gift of 6 billion to employers in the form of reductions in social contributions.

There is also, in this tax recipe, the fact that the reality catches somewhere the government’s cowardly arguments. Indeed, this increase in consumption taxes that you impose in all budgets from the beginning, you generally justify it by health, environment, alcohol, tobacco, etc. This is the classic alibi. This is not new. We remember the health index that goes back to the nineties, I think, where this thread was already used. But here, in fact, you are caught up by reality.

What criticism was addressed to you? Either these taxes have a budget effect, or they have an impact on health policy, on environmental policy, but we cannot have both. Either it is one, or it is the other. You are caught up with this reality. For example, with the taxes on tobacco, we actually see that there is a decrease in the income of excise taxes on tobacco, hence your will, Mr. Minister, to reduce the excise taxes on tobacco, a little increase in cancers at the same time, to obtain budget revenues. Afterwards, you went back and said you were misunderstood. Your reversal is quite damaging from a public health point of view but it shows the false pretext of your consumption tax increases.

Also in this chapter, there is the non-fight against tax fraud. The European Commission does not believe in government measures on tax fraud and therefore does not take into account these revenues. There is a permanent tax amnesty. We can discuss numbers, what goes into the cash, but for me the main question is what is the long-term negative effect of this permanent tax amnesty that ultimately, by inciting tax fraud, brings less revenue to the state cash, long-term in any case.

There is a new issue, Mr. Minister. This is your blocking at the European level on intermediaries in tax settlements. You were questioned on this subject in the plenary session last week, which shows that Belgium plays a brake role in the fight against tax fraud. Not only do we do too little, but we slow down even when other countries take initiatives! There is your bill that passed in plenary last week on the so-called fight against tax fraud, but it is an empty bill, in which we find no measure a bit substantial, including not certain measures that you had announced when you took the succession of Elke Sleurs.

You oppose a systematic rejection when I propose to you, like other colleagues, a measure recommended by the OECD and that is practiced in different European countries, namely to have a specific tax cell to control our greatest fortunes. We actually see, through the different leaks, such as the Panama Papers or the Malta Files, a particular behavior among the richest. I’m not even talking about the richest 1% here. Gabriel Zucman, a specialist in tax havens, speaks of the 0.01% richest, thus the richest percentage in the richest percentage. At home, the probability of having an offshore account reaches 70%. The rate of income fraud is more or less than 2% in the general population; in this category, 30% of the income evades tax. There is a substance to go for money, but it requires a special cell as recommended by the OECD for this particular category of taxpayers, which you have explicitly refused.

Finally, there are the recurring protests of the financial staff. Financial officials can no longer face the continuous decline of staff and protest. They are likely to take a trade union action in the coming days. Clearly, they are not satisfied with your answers, and I’m not even talking about the ISI, the Special Tax Inspection, to which you promised 100 additional inspector officials. Between 2015 and 2016, there was not an increase of 100, but rather a decrease of 15. So there is a decrease!

In tax revenues, you can also not count on a surplus value on shares. CD&V proposed this, saying that we would tax the surplus value on shares. Today, we have turned this into something weird, confusing, a “fair tax.” A precise request was removed to replace it with a general and confusing request that shows, somewhere, the failure of the CD&V that had sought to obtain this measure within the coalition.

Let’s get to the second part, the budget balance that is delayed from year to year. Initially, it was announced for 2017, then 2018; it became 2019. At some point, we will no longer be able to postpone because the legislature will be over.

The [...]

I was just going to come there!

Mr. President, Mr. Van Hees, first of all, I have experienced Jean-Pierre Van Rossem sitting in the same chair as you. I don’t know if you still know Jean-Pierre Van Rossem with the list ROSSEM. It’s been almost twenty years ago.

Mr Van Overtveldt, he was an economist. He studied economics in Gent. He was monitoring Economics and writing articles, ⁇ not in Trends but in Humo. He knew something about economics.

However, the PTB begins here on balancing the budget in 2018 or 2019.

Are you in favour of a balanced budget?

Secondly, not me, but Philippe Defeyt of Ecolo, who is taken very seriously, has calculated that your program costs a minimum of €50 billion. They want to nationalize all banks. You want to drive out the big multinationals because they come here and go with the profits. You want to “statize” the economy. In addition, you want to make a lot of spending in social security that makes social security end up in a huge deficit.

You have the ambition to become the largest party in Wallonia. However, your program costs a minimum of 50 billion euros.

You come here to play the lesson to a government that currently has a deficit of 1.5 or 0.5%. There is debate about this, but it is moving towards a zero balance.

When you get to power, you want to spend 50 billion euros. If I can count correctly, it means at least 10 to 12% of GDP. That would mean 12.5% of GDP, which would explode our deficit.

You come here to tell it with a serious and a plump as if we are dumb, as if we don’t know how the economy works and as if we don’t know how to put budgets together. You come forward here with demagogy and a kind of leftist populism that really gives me a degout, because your stories are never pierced.

I must note that the left parties also do not dare to attack the PTBs. You do not dare to attack them. It is always so quiet on those banks, even on the couch of Mr. Calvo, who sits next to me. You do not dare to attack them.

Disguise those gentlemen. If they come to power, the big multinational companies will be driven out of the country, the banks will be nationalized, the budget deficits will explode, and we will no longer be able to pay our state debt.

These are programs of left-wing populists that are more extreme than certain right-wing parties.

Mrs. Kitir, where is your reaction to these statements? You are silent.

Mr. Van Hees, I will no longer listen to what you say, because you do not listen when we say something in the committee. You never give a counterargument. You play your record there, and you will also end up referring to the millionaire tax and to the fact that then everything is resolved.

Mij stoort het dat uw uitlatingen in de public opinion niet worden doorprikt in dat wij u ook in het Parlement regelmatig eens moeten vragen naar uw bedoelingen. Iedereen zegt dat het toch maar gaat over of PTB, but eigenlijk bent u levensgevaarlijk, want u zult ⁇ 20 % halen in Wallonia in de mensen voorliegen. by Voorliegen!

Thank you for your questions, Mr. Van Rompuy. Regarding the cost of the PTB program, indeed, Mr. Defeyt conducted a study. He is conducting studies that, in my opinion, are of unequal values. There are more interesting studies than others. In this case, I think you did not read his study because you are talking about nationalization. However, his study on the PTB program does not refer to it at all.

This is not what I say. In its cost estimate, there is no such aspect.

No, because a nationalization does. Sorry to me! I will give you an example. What did the government do with Fortis? He took Fortis, nationalized it and then practically offered it to BNP Paribas. That is the kind of nationalization that actually costs expensive, since, on the one hand, there is a part – the population – who suffers financially this type of nationalization and, on the other, a large banking group, a large multinational banking company like BNP Paribas, whose practices are quite dubious in this world, which profits fully.

I asked the Minister of Finance a question on this. The dividends that Fortis paid to the current BNP Fortis Paribas are three times more than what BNP Paribas paid as dividends to Belgium, since Belgium became a shareholder of BNP Paribas. This shows somewhere the flight that there was through the state operation to save Fortis. Here, you see that there are nationalizations that cost and there are those that cost much less, or even that can bring money.

What is your response to the situation in 2008?

The state had to manage Fortis. There was a double operation in Fortis. First, the state became the owner of Fortis and then it ceded Fortis to BNP Paribas.

You are asking for your alternative.

I answered . There was a double operation in Fortis. First, the state became a shareholder of Fortis and then it ceded Fortis to BNP Paribas. For me, I had to do the first operation, not the second. This is the second one that was a donation to this multinational banking company BNP Paribas. All observers said Fortis was offered virtually for nothing to BNP Paribas. You can read it. Morgan Stanley said that. The newspaper Le Monde headlined: “BNP Paribas can thank the Belgian taxpayer.”

I can read the articles of the time if you want.

For us, it was up to the State to manage this bank; as the CGER and the Municipal Credit were managed publicly for 130 years without any problems. Ten years of privatization of these public institutions have been enough for them to collapse, to be on the verge of bankruptcy. That is the problem! We can thank the government of the time, and Mr. Reynders, for making these donations to multinational banking companies.

and two points. Have you seen the BNP stock price recently? No, you have not seen it. Furthermore, what is your explanation/solution for what happened to Dexia, which was a government bank?

Dexia had public capital, but was listed on the stock exchange. This bank was not entirely public. It was managed as a private bank, with the same search for profit. She invested, she took over FSA in the United States, which made reinsurance on subprimes, etc. It has had the same tricks as private banks: making profit at any cost, having toxic, dangerous investments. This is what practically caused the bankruptcy of Dexia, like Fortis. Fortis had a team in the United States to create subprimes, to play on derivatives. The problems come from this hunting for profit at any cost.

The only banks that did not make such investments were Canadian private banks. The difference you make between...

This does not demonstrate anything at all!

This shows everything!

But not . I can tell you that Kiwibank, a New Zealand public bank, has not invested in subprimes. She had no difficulties. It was a public bank, in a country where everything had been privatized. At one point, they realized that any privatization would lead them to disaster.

Mr Van Hees, Mrs Smaers would like to intervene.

I have not yet answered Mr Van Overtveldt.

So go on.

Mr. Van Hees, I have another question. How would you use all the staff of these banks? Will they all become officials? You are talking about nationalization, so those banks become government institutions. Are employees becoming officials?

The answer is very simple. In Fortis, there were staff of the GERC, former officials with a status, and staff of the Banking General. When former CGER officials moved to Fortis, they regretted their former status.

and laughing)

You laugh, but ask them. Do you know the former employees of the CGER? Do they not regret the passage to Fortis?

How will you pay all these pensions?

The same goes for the pensions of civil servants. For now, pension funds lead to financial disasters. It was the same government that reduced the rate that should be allocated to pension funds. Therefore, we have a catastrophe for public sector workers who have a pension fund. Therefore, I think that a public pension system is much safer for staff than adventurous “tricks” like pension funds. We come back, as with Fortis and Dexia, on speculative at any cost.

Mr. Van Rompuy, about the 50 billion – you say I repeat myself, but if there is one that repeats itself on this subject ...

It’s always with Mr. de Spoelberch from AB InBev! I’m talking about those 50 billion. I also have a record that doesn’t stop turning about it when I listen to you. Where will you find that sum? Furthermore, what is your policy towards multinational companies, since 35% of the jobs in Flanders, for example, in the private sector, come from foreign capital? Do you intend to exclude them? What is your policy with regard to foreign investments, multinational companies, everyone’s investments in Belgium? Do you want to answer my question? What is your view of the economy?

About the $50 billion? Because you have asked me several questions.

Don’t talk to me about Mr. de Spoelberch or the millionaire tax because I know that record.

First, the $50 billion. Our program doesn’t cost 50 billion and I challenge Mr. Defeyt’s estimate. It costs less than half and is fully funded by the millionaire tax and also by measures such as equity surplus. What is the value added on shares, Mr. Van Rompuy? The surplus value on shares is a claim of the CD&V, which it abandons. All measures are financed.

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We are around 10 billion: 8 billion for the millionaire tax and 2 billion for the surplus value on shares.

Mr. Van Rompuy asks me questions but he does not listen to the answers. I am busy answering you, Mr. Van Rompuy. For the 50 billion, we dispute both the amount and the fact that it is not funded. All of our cost measurements are offset by measures that report, including equity surplus. I’ve said it before, but you’re no longer listening!

Regarding Mr. Defeyt’s calculations, I would like to point out that he is one of the great advocates of universal income. Do you know the cost of this single measure he advocates? This is 100 billion euros. He criticizes the PTB program that would cost €50 billion – which is not true – and a single measure of his program, the universal allocation, costs €100 billion! I doubt the seriousness of this budget analysis and I think there is a problem.

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Those who defend social security should be careful of these kinds of ideas which seem generous and interesting, which obviously have very respectable aspects but which, I believe, endanger our social security.

We could make a Defeyt-Bouchez coalition on the universal allocation.

So, does the PTB defend budgetary rigour? The PTB finds today that the Belgian population is suffering a double punishment: both austerity and the lack of budgetary rigour. That is the problem! Billions of dollars of austerity are being imposed on the population. And we say to ourselves that after all these billions of austerity suffered, we have come out of the hole! Well, this is not the case! The hole is still there. This is the problem: the double punishment that is imposed on the population.

There is a war of numbers. There are those of the European Commission that report 2% deficit in 2018, and then the government corridor figures heard at the end of May that report 5.2 billion if we add the effort still to do in 2017 and 2018. The National Bank is talking about six to eight billion to reach the balance. The Plan Bureau goes even further by talking about 9.1 billion and then, all of a sudden, the monitoring committee comes with good news because there would be no more effort to produce in 2017 and a little less than 1% (about 4 billion) to find in 2018. The question is whether, in view of the government’s correction of its cleansing, the monitoring committee has not somehow submitted itself to what the government imposes on it as an exercise.

In any case, even in the majority, Mr Van Rompuy, you are critical of the monitoring committee’s estimate. You say it is not credible. This comment comes from the banks of the majority, unless you have revised your remarks since.

I never turn my chariot, Mr. Van Hees, but the Planning Bureau, the European Commission and the National Bank speak in macro terms. The European Commission spoke of 2%, the National Bank of 1.8%, and the Planning Office also of 2%. If you had listened carefully to what the two ministers said, you would have heard that two things must be charged, namely the macroeconomic forecasts on income and expenditure and the actual evolution of income, as they are recorded. In this case, it is about the first four or five months of this year. Transposing these numbers can deduce certain things, but at this moment it is unclear.

I have said that the deficit reduction for this year is likely to be 0.6 or 0.7%, which is quite logical and in line with what the European Commission says. The other figures of 0.4% and 0.5% from the Plan Bureau and the National Bank are questionable. For example, the National Bank and the European Commission assume zero income from tax regularization, from savings for long-term sick and from measures against tax fraud. The government says that they will yield less than originally planned, but if you accept those corrections, you will come to lower amounts that you will have to look for to get a balance in 2019.

There is still a field of tension between what those institutions say and what the Monitoring Committee says. I read that the figures of the Monitoring Committee are not yet definitive and that they still need to be double-checked. There will probably be some elements added, but they create confusion in the public opinion. This does not exempt the government from a huge effort it has to make, namely, to save 4 billion. That will still be a huge task, but if it moves towards balance and if we take into account the unrealized deficit reduction in 2017, we are now structurally close to 1.4 to 1.5 %.

Thank you, Mr Van Rompuy! You say everything and your opposite. I advise you to question the government figures in the House rather than in the media, if you want to care for the cohesion of the government majority. You do the opposite! Release your reviews to the Chamber and, in the newspapers, say that everything is fine and that the numbers are good.

Among the elements that play favorably and adversely on the budget, we have a favorable international economic conjuncture, which has nothing to do with government policy.

On the other hand, a number of elements play a negative role on the budget.

It can be cited by the recurring poor estimates of the government. The tax shift is divided over three quarters over the years 2018-2020. Therefore, only a quarter has been funded; the rest, 6.6 billion, is still to be found for the period 2018-2020. There are the multiple reforms defended by the four majority parties since the government, despite the budget hole, continues to say that structural reforms are needed – I will come. There is the National Pact for Strategic Investments, not to mention the promises of our Prime Minister to President Trump in terms of increasing the defence budget.

Indeed, the different parties of the majority, while the hole is still important, always come up with new measures. For N-VA and Van Overtveldt, this is a major corporate tax reform, where the rate would be lowered to 20%, or a cost of more or less 8 billion euros.

Recently it was learned that the MR was somewhat curbing Mr. Van Overtveldt’s enthusiasm on the issue by seeking to limit, in the first place, this reform to SMEs. But not so much to defend SMEs as multinational companies, since we realize that the MR continues to place a large confidence in the notional interests, this baby of Minister Reynders when he was in Finance, which the reform would eventually challenge.

The Open Vld also comes with measures to promote venture capital and expand flexi-jobs.

The CD&V is a bit vigilant about its share-added value and comes with a tax shift bis, which would be a way to extend gifts, reductions in social contributions to new sectors such as construction and e-commerce.

Mr Van Hees, this is not a tax shift bis, it is a tax shift abyss!

Thank you for your comment, Mr. Laaouej.

The MR, in the person of the Prime Minister, comes with this investment pact whose amount is doubled. We were 30 billion. It reaches 60 billion. It is also known – the prime minister came to explain it in this assembly in commission – that he relies much on the private sector for these investments but also through public incentives to the private sector to invest. Therefore, we will have public investments that will consist of giving incentives to the private so that the private can invest. You already see the budgetary dangers it can pose when reasoning in such a way.

So, I said, there are also the promises of the prime minister, who ramps a little bit in front of Donald Trump and who says, “Yes, yes, Mr. President of the United States, we will increase the defense budget.” Knowing that what we ask for defence is 2% of GDP and that we are now at 0.85% of GDP, it requires an effort of 5 billion a year nothing but to increase the defence budget to 2%, while on the other hand, we see that development cooperation is one of the poor parents of this government. There is a target of 0.7%, but it is getting more and more distant. Our financial commitments to international organizations are no longer respected, as the Court of Auditors’ study has shown.

Furthermore, there are manipulations in the figures of the cooperation budget. Which is the first beneficiary of the Belgian Cooperation? Madame Wilmes, do you know? Which is the first beneficiary of the Belgian Cooperation aid? No, I see you have no idea. This is Belgium! Why Belgium? Because we put the aid to refugees, Fedasil, in the budget of Development Cooperation. Belgium is the first beneficiary of the Belgian Development Cooperation. This is quite clever, of course, from a budgetary point of view, but a little doubtful anyway!

Finally, we see that there is a mirror effect compared to the target of 0.7% of Development Cooperation and the target of 2% for the military. Clearly, this government chooses bombs rather than development cooperation.

On the issue of debt, the European Commission obviously notes that, during the transitional period 2014-2016, Belgium did not meet the reduction criterion. And all suggests that in 2017, this will not be the case either. Today, the debt is at the level of 2013.

However, Belgium is not sanctioned. Why Why ? Because the European Commission finds that Belgium is pursuing an ultra-liberal policy that corresponds to its own sensitivities. And to quote the anti-social reforms of this government: the 1996 law reform, tax shift, exemption from social contributions, efforts to moderate wages, reform of public pensions, tightening of early retirement conditions, pensions to 66 years in 2025 and to 67 years in 2030, index jump, reduction of public employment. She even applauds the point pension already in advance, which has not even passed the direction of the government yet!

Mr. Van Hees, you are concerned about public debt. You think that Belgium is making too much debt. Does your program, however, mean that the debt will be brought down?

We are now facing a debt of more than 100% of GDP. If you come to power and carry out your economic, social and fiscal program, do you not think that the distrust that will arise towards Belgium because a communist party in the heart of Europe comes to power will explode the debt? I do not understand your sensitivity to debt, as your program and your political action will only lead to a further explosion of debt. Or do you think that all this will not happen?

We saw at that time your great sympathy for Mr. Varoufakis in Greece. Even in the full Greek crisis, you wanted to invite the chairman of the Greek parliament here. Remember that Mr. Varoufakis declared two years ago that the debts should be removed? The Minister of Finance has also known Varoufakis very well.

Your whole discourse is actually a debt discourse, in which you build up mistrust and drive the companies away, which would be fatal to the ordinary man, because he would become the victim of it.

Here now come a nice theory proclaiming about the debts that are too high in Belgium, that I find very sorry. It is very bad that the public opinion does not disguise you.

Mr. Van Rompuy, I just unmask this policy of the European Commission which, on the one hand, says that, on the numbers, Belgium does not ⁇ the goals, and, on the other, saves Belgium by looking only at all the antisocial policies carried out by this government, because it will be good for debt. It is the same ideological blindness as that of this government. This is exactly what the European Commission is doing, it is written black on white in their text.

What increased the debt? A few years ago, debt was below the 100% bar, remember, Mr. Van Rompuy. Let us return to the issue of banks, which is in full current. The banking policy of the hunt for profit led to the financial crisis and led to a sharp increase in debt, while years of austerity had been imposed on the population, to gradually reduce this debt. Suddenly, it exploded and in a few years, it is rebounded above 100% of GDP.

Unfortunately, this government wants to do the same. He wants to continue the private banking policy, all to the private, since he sells part of the capital of BNP Paribas. This sale will cost money: given that interest rates are currently low, it costs less to repay interest on the debt than to skip dividends that were paid by BNP Paribas. What explains this inconsistent budgetary choice? Let us ask ourselves the question that also applies to the possible stockpiling of Belfius, since the problem will be the same.

The ministers tell us that the European Commission needs to be seen well and that this operation will reduce the debt a little. In fact, what is the effect of selling a stake in BNP Paribas or Belfius? On the net asset of the state, the impact is zero and, at the budgetary level, it costs. On net assets, with the asset going down and the liability going down with the same amount, there is no effect.

The European Commission only looks at one side of the balance sheet, the wealth of Belgium: it looks at debt and not the sale of state assets. This is a policy that promotes privatization. Yes, Mrs. Wilmes, you can raise your eyes to the sky, but that is the reality.

You are talking about the capital market and interest rates. Should Belgium leave the euro? This is a very precise question. Marine Le Pen has also been arrested. She lost the elections in France when asked if she would reintroduce the French franc and leave the euro. It was fatal in these elections. I ask you if, when the PTB is in power, Belgium will leave the euro. I want an answer in the form of yes or no. Either we leave, or we do not leave.

Mr Van Rompuy, this is out of discussion.

This is the main point of the budget debate. If we leave the euro, it means that the debts will again be in Belgian francs and that the entire transition period will cost billions to the state and people. Is the PTB for an exit from the euro?

And of Europe!

And a Brexit!

The question is double, but the answer is the same. The PTB wants to fundamentally revise the European treaties. We are not in favour of a Belgian-Belgium retreat against Belgium, but we want to fundamentally revise the rules of the game of the European Union, which are those that I denounce. The answer is clear.

Do you want to end the free movement of people? What does this mean?

Revise the budget treaties, the TSCG and similar treaties. They make the European Commission a budget gendarme who imposes its policy through this role. This makes her actually a political gendarme, as I just demonstrated. We actually question these treaties that impose austerity on the peoples of the European countries. We are for the defense of a public bank, of a truly public Belfius. An associative movement today defends the public retention of Belfius, and not only the public retention of Belfius to act as a private bank, but to act as a bank really at the service of the Belgian economy, the population and the business, and not as a bank focused on its own individual profit.

I will conclude with the last part of this speech which I thought was short. I want to talk about this government’s economic bulletin. This government uses employment as an alibi. We already know the speech of the government parties ahead of the next 2019 election. All austerity measures, anti-social measures, and budget failures – this is the double punishment – will be hidden behind a supposed increase in employment. The term "anti-social" is to be taken in a double sense: on the one hand, which hurts the population; and on the other hand, which is poorly perceived by the population, which is not accepted by it.

There is indeed a certain increase in employment. But what is it due to? Certainly not the government policy. This is due to a favorable international climate. There was the possibility of reducing the social congestion imposed by this government’s austerity policy. But other choices were made: to make new "structural reforms",to use the terms of the government, that is, new gifts to capital.

Let us wait for two seconds on employment. In terms of unemployment, the evolution of the economic conjuncture is less significant in Belgium than in the rest of the euro area. The standardized unemployment rate, or employment rate, changes less than in other euro area countries. In addition, in Belgium, unemployment statistics hide other realities. According to a recent study by Forem, thousands of unemployed people who have stopped receiving insertion allowances have disappeared from Forem’s radar. I quote the Forem: “31% of the public left the job application soon after the expiration of rights, without returning there in the year that followed. They are mostly people with little or no experience."The unemployed who are no longer unemployed disappear from the radar. I do not know what social catastrophe comes with this kind of evolution. As for the positions created, I recall the latest available figures from the ONSS, which run from the fourth quarter of 2014 to the fourth quarter of 2016, or two years of the Swedish government: 68,000 additional jobs were actually created, or + 2%. But this global reality hides quite disparate developments.

If you look at the evolution of full times, it is only 1% of evolution. If you look at the evolution of part-time, it is 2%. And if we look at the evolution of temporary, seasonal jobs and limited benefits, we go to 16.7%. This means that this government is not creating employment but the precariation of employment. Getting a job is not an end in itself. When someone wants a job, it is to have a decent salary, proper working conditions, from which to build a future for his family. This is not what this government is creating. We are increasingly in a logic of poor workers, as it exists in the United States or Germany, where one can have a job but precarious, which does not allow to live dignified. In 2016, Belgium was the only country in the European Union where real wages, excluding inflation, fell. All other member countries saw their real wages increase. We are about 1% of the evolution of real wages.

There has been a discussion about the available income. It does not distinguish between the share of income that goes to capital and that that goes to work. Poverty is also developing in a worrying way as the number of women at risk of poverty or social exclusion has increased from 1 204 000 in 2014 to 1 263 000 in 2016. That’s 59,000 more women. As for the rate of exploitation – which in the national income goes to capital and which goes to work – the share of wages in the national income from the 4th quarter of 2014 to the 1st quarter of 2017 increased from 53,4% to 48,3%. In the same period, the share of profits increased from 36.2% to 42.2%. It has increased sharply. The Swedish woman has never so deserved her title as the government of the bosses.

We will be serious again. By letting Mr. Van Hees go up to the tribune, I didn’t think we would spend so much time analyzing the PTB program. Even Ms. Onkelinx was tired of this, to the point of waiting for the end of our colleague’s speech to return to the session.

If you allow me, Mr. Speaker, like most colleagues, I will stay on my bench. Indeed, the adjustment that is presented to us deserves neither excess enthusiasm nor excess indignation. Mr Piedboeuf himself indicated that this was only an adjustment, not an initial budget. The exercise is ⁇ technical, since there are no taxes, no additional savings, no positive measures - but it is the gift that the four majority parties offered themselves by distributing, at the rate of 15 million per formation, a small margin to allow their respective ministers to take some initiatives. In short, this adjustment is a non-event.

However, I will make a few comments on behalf of the CDH group. First of all, I will come back, if you allow me, Mr. Speaker, to the progress of our work in the committee. I would like first of all to thank the chairman of the committee, and this is not the first time I do so – but it is always very sincerely – who systematically ensures that the debates take place in respect of the opposition and without any obstacle to the government and the majority. I am pleased to congratulate you here.

I also thank the ministers, who have shown assistance throughout the discussions in the committee. I must admit, however, that at some point I would have liked more interactivity. The ministers gratify us with an introductory and then concluding speech. Between the two, there was a lack of respondents. Maybe we can think about it for the next work. I thus think it would be wise to work chapter by chapter to go further into the substance of things and gradually listen to the position of the government, in particular with regard to the recurring observations of the Court of Auditors. By the way, it was Mr. Van Rompuy himself who had suggested that they lead to a written response from the government. I think this is a good proposal, which would help to improve our debates as well as the future analysis of the Court of Auditors, as it could take into account the responses of the government.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with what I said earlier. I agree with what he says now. I wonder to what extent we can’t organize our budget work differently. I don’t want to revolutionize the institution; it’s not that. But imagine that our work extends over several months. Water runs under the bridges.

On the other hand, one could imagine a dynamic ⁇ a little more interactive with ministers, rather than aligning interventions. There are many of us who regularly say somewhat the same thing on the side of the opposition and the majority respond with arguments that are substantially all flooded into the same pattern.

I wonder to what extent a new momentum could not be instilled in the processing of budget files. For the rest, we depend on schedules, deposits and company, but to hear the Court of Auditors, the Commission, the introductory exposition of the ministers and to hear us say the same thing three or four times, I think we might be doing differently.

For example, the CDH and the PS can meet on certain points, at least on the course of the work in the Budget and Finance Committee. And among us, dear Ahmed, this is not so surprising.

Another point I would like to emphasize – this has already been done – is the planned obsolescence of this budget adjustment. Since it was approved by the government in March, a lot of water has flowed under the bridges and it is now already overtaken by the facts, which is still a little embarrassing as we find ourselves here, at the end of June, in a plenary session to debate figures that we know are overtaken. This is ⁇ the law of gender and no one can do anything about it.

Except that, increasingly, the budget does not ultimately constitute a preliminary framework set in advance of government work, but rather it is adapted gradually according to the decisions that intervene throughout the year. I obviously agree with the Minister of Budget who told us in committee that the government cannot stop working and that initiatives can be taken. That is normal.

However, when we see, for example, that just a few weeks after the budget adjustment, as part of the security and terrorism theme, the government generated new spending that could not have been integrated, we say that budget control has become a retrospective pilot. It does not really anticipate the margins that can be distributed later in the context of substantive work, such as those announced by the government on other topics than those addressed in the Special Council of Ministers dedicated to security and terrorism, which led the government to issue a envelope of 105 million euros, except for my error, which was not included in the adjustment that it had drawn up shortly before.

We talked a lot about macroeconomic factors. What may appear as an improvement of a number of indicators, members of the majority stressed at the envi that in terms of jobs, growth, number of bankruptcies, the figures appear better and everyone can look forward to it.

I would still like to warn you against an excessive euphoria because if the figures improve – which no one disputes on certain aspects – it is nevertheless necessary to find that they improve rather less than in other countries of the euro area. This was explained to us, in particular, by representatives of the European Commission when they came to tell us about their analysis. They highlighted how much, especially in terms of growth, but not only – as this is also the case from a macro-budgetary point of view – Belgium is doing less well than the European average.

This should, I think, incite you to a certain modesty. Especially since the representatives of the Commission have also, on the margins of the purely budgetary analysis, highlighted a number of difficulties that continue to hinder the socio-economic situation of our country. Since there has been little talk about it, I would like to mention it because it is a message that I have, personally, found interpellant and that deserves to be taken into consideration.

The Commission representatives, for example, stressed that in terms of competitiveness, although their assessment can be overall positive, they have a number of negative points, including higher inflation in Belgium than elsewhere with a risk of loss of competitiveness. There is also a certain vigilance to observe in merchant services. They highlighted the rigidity of the service market, the negative effects of the increase in VAT on electricity or the increase in certain direct assignments.

In terms of competitiveness – which is somewhat the leitmotiv of this government and this majority – there are more negative signals that we should not lose sight of. The same applies to services, where the Commission highlights the degree to which our service market is hindered by costs that are, compared to others, higher, a dynamism that may be less and, above all, an impact on the growth of the share of spending on research, innovation and development that may be less than one might expect. There is also a matter of reflection.

As part of its recommendations, the Commission also emphasized that in the labour market we need to make progress: performance remains low even if it improves. The employment rate remains lower than in other European countries. There are a number of elements that I found appealing, such as the fact that Belgium is the red lantern in Europe for the occupational integration of migrants. There is something to question.

Similarly, we see a very strong polarization between people integrated into the job market and those excluded from it.

While some signs may seem positive and announce a relative improvement, the socio-economic situation remains concerned in many respects. I therefore invite the majority not to succumb to this temptation of euphoria which I thought I was perceiving at certain moments, during the debates of this afternoon.

I would like to address the budgetary trajectory since budgetary control must, in principle, reassure us. Honestly, as much as it seemed clear and clearly assumed at the beginning of the legislature, with the aim of restoring the budgetary balance, so much, over time, it seems more and more fluctuating, changing and evolving.

At the beginning of 2017, the goal was still to restore the balance in 2018, then in April, the government eventually acknowledged that it would not be before 2019. Moreover, quite recently, I thought I understood, in an interview with Deputy Prime Minister Mr. Peeters, that the government would have to question whether this goal of the 2019 horizon remains relevant or whether the return to balance should not be postponed again.

Finally, we find that the volunteerism of the beginning of the legislature followed a certain form of pragmatism. We will see what the numbers will give, but we perceive a certain floating in the definition of the goal. I mean for example the somewhat evolving communication of the government concerning not this adjustment, but a possible second adjustment.

When the first was presented, we were clearly told that there would be a second adjustment so that the 2017 budget remains on track and then, more recently, I thought I understood, following the remarks of Ms. Minister of Budget, that this second adjustment would not be necessary, based on the figures of the Monitoring Committee.

We have a bit of the impression that the government is piloting in sight and that depending on the good or bad news, it adapts its working method and its budget path.

I do not regret pragmatism but it is necessary to have some readability in the multiannual perspective which, in my opinion, becomes a little blurred.

If you allow it, dear colleagues, I would like to return to a debate that I think is very important, that of the methodology used by the different opinion bodies that illuminate our budget discussions. Mr. Van Rompuy made a very interesting distinction between the macroeconomic approaches of the National Bank, the Federal Plan Office, the European Commission and the more micro approach of the Monitoring Committee and government services. It is true that between the short-term approach of the Monitoring Committee and the medium-term approach of the other instances, there are distinct differences. The European Commission announces an effort to reach 1.3 billion in 2017 to keep the budget on rails. The Plan Bureau announces an effort to ⁇ €8 to €9 billion by 2019, when the Monitoring Committee suddenly seems more reassured and confident in the forecasts. This allows both of them to pick up numbers depending on whether one wants to be reassured or, on the contrary, be alarmed.

I can understand that each instance follows its own methodology and that the numbers may differ. But beyond these methodological differences, what I think is most important – and from this point of view, the work is not finished – is to make federal state revenue estimates more reliable. This is a recurring debate that we have held since the beginning of the legislature. Honestly, the debate is not closed today as the Court of Auditors has once again highlighted, in its opinion on this adjustment, a number of uncertainties, in particular related to tax revenues (VAT on gambling, Fairness Tax, corporate tax for intercommunal, excess profit ruling), the difficulties around tax regularization, the unknown concerning notional interests. The uncertainties remain.

The Minister of Finance announced the establishment of a task force to try to improve the reliability of revenue. Subsequently, he stated in a committee that we would resort to external consultation, ⁇ academic, to try to enrich the conclusions of this task force.

I sincerely regret that in the committee, at no time, we were able to get acquainted with the conclusions, even provisional, of the task force. I would like the analysis that will be carried out by external consultants to be communicated to us to allow us to exchange substance on this. I think it would be a mistake to consider that, apparently improving revenue here, through the latest figures of the Monitoring Committee, this debate has become superfluous. Whether the revenues are lower or higher than the forecasts, whatever the case is, what is interesting, what is important, is that they are as reliable as possible. It is not because there is a short-term prospect of improvement that this debate should be discouraged. So, I really wish, Mr. Minister of Finance, Mrs. Minister of Budget, that we can, as soon as possible, clarify the methodology of valuation of our revenues, otherwise we will refer to each other the perspectives of the opinion bodies (the National Bank, the Federal Bureau of Plan, the European Commission, the Monitoring Committee) and we will ultimately not really have the assurance that our figures are well supported and solid, so that the future years could very well reserve us bad surprises.

Also to mitigate the enthusiasm or euphoria of the members of the majority, I would also like to emphasize – because it was still very striking – that the representatives of the Commission explained to us that so far, the improvement in the structural deficit in Belgium is almost exclusively attributable to the relief of the debt burdens. This is what has been told us. I think this relativizes the effectiveness of the budgetary policy implemented so far. Above all, this exposes us to future risks that should not be neglected, since interest evolution, in particular, is an evolution on which we have little control and it could more than likely prove negative in the months and years to come.

Without wanting to be too long, I would also like to mention the debate that some colleagues have opened on investment. The European Commission itself told us that in terms of investment, Belgium needs to do better. Investments in Belgium are mainly attributable to the private sector, while the public part is more defective compared to the standards that should be achieved. At the same time, the Commission told us that we should not make too many illusions: as long as the debt is not further controlled, this instance would be less inclined to allow a form of breadth to allow the country to grant itself investment margins.

The dialogue, we said, is ongoing on this subject. I don’t know if it has evolved since. What is certain is that an additional element has been added since, namely the report that was published yesterday or today on the finances of local authorities.

I allow myself to refer to this because local authorities have a very important share of public investment in Belgium: they alone account for ⁇ half of public investment. However, the latest report on local finances shows a clear slowdown in public investment at the local level, while we are in principle entering the period, in part related to the electoral cycle, where investments are accelerating. Contrary to what has been observed during previous legislatures, observers now notice an extreme caution of local authorities. My feeling is that this is attributable to the rather negative prospects in terms of tax revenue resulting from the tax shift.

The municipalities well understood that the tax shift would cause them to lose 10% of their additional IPP, all things being equal elsewhere. They understood well that the outlook for aging population would also have an impact on their tax revenues. There is, in the head of local authorities, a cautious attitude that does not do our business when we know the need to boost investments.

The Prime Minister explained to us in the committee where his draft investment pact was. He gave us the idea that ⁇ , already during an adjustment of the 2017 budget, or more likely in the 2018 budget, there would be a change to see the start of this investment pact. It must be observed that, in the adjustment that is submitted to us today, there is nothing in this regard. This is not necessarily a good augur for the future. We expect more significant progress in this area in the coming months.

Mr. Speaker, I will conclude by referring to Mr. Van Rompuy’s call for some form of caution and even silence in the ranks of the majority. I think he is politically right. Indeed, it is in discretion that agreements can be negotiated. Furthermore, the agreements resulting from this are not “rikiki”. However, at the moment, objectively, we do not see much coming, especially with regard to the taxation of surplus-value. I think we will not see anything at all. Can we see something about fair taxation?

There is not much going on in terms of savings mobilization. What we are allowed to see in terms of corporate tax reform is more like a reformette, or in any case an ultra light approach to the problem. Is it related to budgetary constraints or political difficulties in finding ground for consensus within the majority? Here too, we will wait to make a final opinion.

So far and in this adjustment, we see nothing coming. Definitely and definitively, this first budget adjustment is light, technical and insignificant. It is a non-event and it does not arouse much enthusiasm. That is why the CDH group will not vote for it.

The data provided by the Plan Bureau, the National Bank and the Monitoring Committee are positive. We see that we are finally on the right track to regain some financial stability, debt settlement and even a certain positive growth rate. Employment rates are rising sharply, the number of bankruptcies is declining and unemployment is decreasing. You have chosen policies that are expensive to the Popular Party.

However, you could go a little further, especially in structural reforms.

I listened to my colleagues wisely and silently. I want the same fair play for me. Rest assured, when I say I will not be long, it will be the case.

However, you could go deeper, especially in structural reforms. You must also do so if you do not want future generations to go to the box to fill the mistakes of the past. We are no longer in the assistive mechanism that has been applied for so many years by a left-wing policy in disagreement with the evolution of society. It is already very good! But you can go further in economies. You would need a little more political courage to drastically reduce unnecessary spending, which is also shown with the finger in the case of better governance.

It would also be enough for you to print to this majority a will to restructure our federal state in order to better adhere to the reality and, above all, to the expectation of citizens. I think of the abolition of the Senate and of the political structure of the provinces.

However, the work is still hard and long because finding the right balance between the social needs of our pensioners, our workers, but also of our social benefits is not an easy thing and the European directives do not really help us in this.

It is clear that you must continue to promote our self-employed and small and medium-sized enterprises. They are a very important vector of employment and, therefore, one of the solutions for growth.

We should also pay attention to the purchasing power of our citizens. To do this, you need to apply a more balanced social justice, ⁇ with respect to large companies that still enjoy too many benefits without compensation.

A profound tax reform is inevitable. Placing patches on wooden legs never healed the wound!

It is also obvious that peripheral policies, such as hosting, must stick to the reality of our budgets and not vice versa. We cannot help the whole world. Far from me the idea of protectionism or self-determination, we simply need a policy of common sense.

The impact of such lax behavior is immediate on the state budget and, therefore, on the portfolio of our fellow citizens. I think, in this case, at the cost of security, or even of “sur-security”.

I also believe that we need to be more strict on tax fraud and social fraud. We must also defend an authentic vision of an energy landscape, so as to stabilize our image in the face of future investors still too hesitant, in the absence of a stable policy – especially on the nuclear level. The price of energy is one of the primary factors determining production costs.

In conclusion, Mrs. and Mr. Ministers, you are on the right track, but show more political courage. Therefore, the People’s Party will not vote against this project, but will abstain.

First and foremost, I would like to thank the members of the Committee on Finance and Budget for the very interesting debate we held. I also thank the Chairman of the Committee, not only for the way he has seen the Presidency, but also for his presentation. In this way, I thank everyone.

Today we have had exciting debates: nuclear, communism, privatizations, health, medicines, etc. We talked about a lot of stuff, the multiannual, the Commission ... But we did not talk much about the budget. But everything is in the budget, the budget is everything, everything is the budget, so it is very pleasant, it is a fabulously interesting matter. But if you allow it, in the short answer I will do – because we have already debated a lot and we are not going to make a large layer of it – I will simply answer about the most prominent points regarding this budget adjustment, since today’s fiscal year is good to work on the 2017 budget adjustment and nothing else.

First, the order of work. It is true that it is long. At the government level, we discussed this adjustment in March, and we vote on it at the end of June. Remember, however, that the budget adjustment was filed in time and is also voted in time, which is not negligible. But it is also a bit of the law of the genre: remember that between the political decision and the time when the documents are deposited in parliament, it takes at least four weeks of writing, since they are each time bricks. We are in committee. Once it is deposited, you should still give yourself some time to grasp this matter that is not thin. We are here to make the introduction. The committee makes this choice – and I fully respect it, but it is not an obligation – to wait for the Court’s report to start debates. It is true that the introductory report is made before, but there is a certain time before you can listen to the Court of Auditors. And you will remember that this time there was a shift, because you wanted to hear the European Commission before starting the debate. I don’t criticize it, but you can’t have everything. If you wait for all these different moments, you must accept that it takes time.

It also happens that this time, paradoxically, we finished quite early. We had translation problems, because the services work a lot, I know. We could have already had these debates in plenary on June 22. Stricto sensu, it was possible, but it was not done. This is not important, I do not regret it. But I still want to emphasize that many committee decisions generate this length; and then, there are the unbeatable ones.

At the level of the debates, I hear clearly that Mr. Dispa wishes for a slightly more fierce debate. I find this quite comic, because he says himself that this budget adjustment is technical and that it is a non-event. I want to make the non-events hot. But from the moment it is considered so, it becomes more complicated.

This intervention was also special, because I think that for an interesting debate, ⁇ it is necessary to listen. Mr Dispa, you talked, for example, about additional costs and the obsolescence of this adjustment. You agree with us, which I thank you for, that given the time that passes between the moment when the political decision is made and the moment when the budget is voted, one does not expect the government to stop working. I think everyone agrees with the fact that we continue to work.

On the particular point of the Extraordinary Council of Ministers of Justice, I answered in a precise manner on the budgetary consequences on the trajectory. Regarding the 2017 budget adjustment, I also explained to you that there was no impact, either because it corresponded to what was proposed, or because it was in the standardised appropriations, or because it was in the updated terrorism provision, or because it came from other entities.

This famous Extraordinary Council of Ministers therefore has no impact on 2017. It has an impact on the 2018 budget trajectory. But we vote on the 2017 budget adjustment, which concerns only the 2017 budget.

We will have the joy and privilege to soon discuss the initial 2018 and its multiannual projection.

During the work, many questions were asked about 2018, the multiannual, the efforts to provide, etc. An intermediate report has been given, but it is only a state of place at a moment T. I remind you that the only document that will be credible and that will inaugurate the technical work from a budgetary point of view will be the report of the Monitoring Committee – which is expected only for next week. As many as we have received indications, as many as these are not final figures. Therefore, I await the report of the Monitoring Committee to see what efforts need to be made.

There has also been abundant discussion of fundamental discrepancies between the projected prospects – not in the adjustment, but generally by the government in terms of the multiannual budget – and the differentiated exercises that are regularly practiced by the Federal Plan Office and the European Commission.

We talked about it everywhere. This has been repeated during the discussion of the stability programme and also during the discussion of the budget amendment. We already talked about it in 2016. So I have no problem doing it again.

You know we have a different approach than the Federal Planning Bureau. There are various models. The Planning Bureau does not account for all measures taken by the government. Another important difference with the Federal Planning Bureau is that it takes Belgium as a whole, while we here only talk about entity I.

We do not have much more information about the planning agency. We have some more information about the European Commission and the Stability Program. During our discussion in the committee, I also had the opportunity to explain something. It was also declared by Europe.

It is true that at the Belgian level – Europe also speaks of the Belgian level and not necessarily of the federal level – the structural balance registered by the European Commission in 2017 amounts to a 1.6 % deficit. For Belgium, we provide a deficit of 0.98% in the stability program. A general explanation for this is that the European Commission is working more macro and we are working more micro. That is true. However, this can also be explained. We see a difference of 0.6 percent. We know that the difference can be explained by the one-offs, which this time are marginal. In the past, the difference was not marginal, but this time it is.

The difference is 0.3% for the output gap and that is a very big difference. When we use the output gap, we do not simply decide about that output gap. We handle the output gap calculated by the Federal Planning Bureau, as determined by law. We also know, if we compare with earlier, that the Federal Planning Bureau usually makes correct calculations of the output gap.

Consequently, almost half of the 0.6 % difference can be explained by the output gap. The rest is explained by a difference in the nominal balance of 0.3 % for the whole of Belgium, of which 0.2 % for Entity I. We know that they do not take into account all measures. They also announced which measures they do not consider because they believe they were not sufficiently detailed. Entity II represents 0.1 %. They believe that this is due to the investments and the fact that they were not booked properly.

I would like to repeat that in the past – not so long ago – there was much to do about the nominal deficit. In October and November, the European Commission reduced this to 3%. This would have been a very problematic deficit. There was a lot of shock in the press and in the opposition.

We said very quickly that according to our calculation Belgium would be at 2.6% at the end of December.

I would also like to reiterate that in February, two months after the closing of the accounts, the European Commission again confirmed its 3% while we had reached 2.6%.

I am not saying that the calculations of the European Commission are not interesting and that we should not take those calculations into account. Surely not . But we have enough experience to know that they are not always as accurate as they should be.

This is a very important issue that we are currently discussing with the European Commission. It is something else to say what the long-term outlook is, but in such a short-term, the figures should still be true. That is not the case, and as you said, Mr. Van Rompuy, this is confusing for everyone. It does not help us with what we do.

One more specific question was about flexibility. We had discussed thresholds with Europe and introduced a request for an extension for asylum flexibility for 2017; we have not yet received a formal answer to this specific question. We have received a response on the topic, but I still remind you that flexibilities are always calculated ex post. Once the calculation is done ex post, I am convinced that we will continue to discuss, if necessary, how to calculate. I emphasize "if necessary" because the flexibility apparatus only makes sense if there is a significant deviation from the trajectory. In other words, if, ex post, we realize that we are complying with the stability programme and that there is no significant deviation, this flexibility tool will not need to be taken into account.

That’s true, I said it just recently, there was a stand van zaken on 2017 that was activated recently. I look forward to the figures from the Monitoring Committee like everyone else because these are the only figures that will allow us to start budget discussions more accurately.

That being said, if the figures received so far are verified, it means that we would be in the nails, at the height of what was announced and in the commitment of the 2017 stability program. This would mean that in any case, we should not resort to this flexibility clause. However, there is a lot of “yes” in my sentence and so I suggest waiting.

I answer with the elements I have, Mr. Laououej. More precisely than that, I can’t, otherwise I’d tell you about slugs since we’ll decide on this ex post, after 2017 and we’re still in 2017.

Mrs. Temmerman, there were a lot of questions about what we will do in 2018. Will it be a walk in the park compared to 2017? Surely not . No one has said that. We only say what we think 2017 will bring. There is also the monitoring committee’s estimate. At the end of the ride, it will only be possible to determine the result for 2017 based on the calculations.

There will still be much effort to be made in 2018. That’s never easy, and so I’m definitely not saying it’s going to be a walk in the park. I only say that for 2018 we must wait for the monitoring committee’s estimate.

Mrs Temmerman, you held a technical discussion on the autonomous factor. The correction of the autonomous factor will take place in 2018. In the past, too much was paid out to the regions, but no one has pointed to it. This, however, had a significant impact on our nominal balance. Again, no one said anything about it, everyone kept silent. Maybe we didn’t know that at that time. Therefore, we cannot be blamed for the fact that those funds will have to be refunded at some point, which, by the way, is normal.

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That is where I arrive. It is a one-off refund, which will have an effect on the nominal balance, but not on the structural balance. And we are always talking about the structural balance. I may not have understood your comment in that regard, but as soon as we know the outlook for the nominal balance for 2018, everyone will know how the fork is on the steel.

However, we reason in structural balance, so for the work to be done here, that won’t make a lot of a difference.

I think I have discussed the most important comments and I hope you understand the most important points right now.

I will, of course, talk about income. There have been a number of punctual comments, which I will address as soon as possible. That will, of course — the world has not changed in a few weeks — essentially be the same answers as those I gave in the committee.

Regarding the revenue in general, I simply refer to the recent codecs, which you will undoubtedly follow closely, and which clearly show — especially when you look at the revenue in ESR terms, in which the budgets are drawn up and compared over time — that the predetermined figures were obtained. That is the only relevant element in this matter. In terms of income, we thus obtain in ESR terms the figures that were adjusted to the new macroeconomic environmental factors following budget control, which is slightly more economic growth. It is also expected that this will be the case throughout the year. Of course, inevitably, at 115 billion revenues, there are important pluses and important minuses in certain categories.

Regarding corporate taxes, Mr. Laaouej, it is not easy to make a comparison in time. You are partially right when you say that in 2010, we were still in the post-crisis period. Before, I refer to the 12 billion, we were in an economic situation whose growth depended on situations prior to the years 2008 and 2009. A comparison on this subject may therefore be a little forced. That being said, I go into the detail of a number of remarks made.

I will begin with the NIA, for which the government has actually subscribed a significant amount following the budget control.

Also in 2016 we registered a revenue of 196 million euros due to the decline in interest rates. That was then the result of a drop in the rate by half a percentage point to 1.13 %.

Now we are “facing” a drop of the rate by almost one percentage point to the lowest reference rate ever.

Why did it take a while before we reached these conclusions? The answer is indirect in what the Court of Auditors has written. I refer to the report of the Court of Auditors at page 29. The Court of Auditors points out the uncertainty associated with the estimation of the NIA, in particular due to the difficulty of measuring the effects of changes in company behavior.

The estimation of it is indeed something that we have studied for a long time. After all, if the NIA deduction decreases, many companies still have the possibility to deduct other deductions, which were previously not eligible due to the large volume of the NIA. Thus, this is a very difficult exercise, in which we have only seen clarity at the beginning of 2017. With “we” I mean both the FOD and the Cabinet.

In recent years it has been shown that the gross cost of the notional interest deduction per percentage point reduced the decline in the rate of the notional interest deduction by one and a half billion euros.

Taking into account the rate of corporate tax, net costs decrease by slightly more than 450 million euros as a result of the drop in the rate in 2017.

On the basis of those figures, the Government has decided to subscribe a sum of EUR 325 million, which is 70 %. Is that accurate? No, it is not. Is this a realistic estimate? Yes, that is it.

In the case of the excess profit rulings, we are faced with the situation that with the incohesions only the tax advantage arising from the previous decisions has been corrected.

If there were to be recovered, taking into account all aspects of corporate tax, the companies concerned would still have to be able to recover notional interest deductions, losses from previous years and the like, which has not happened.

Another recovery of those amounts will be carried out in 2017. Therefore, in the preparation of the budget, the potential recovery of approximately 350 million euros has been taken into account. That was a very rough estimate at the time. Based on more detailed figures, we have concluded that this exemption is likely to be close to 107 million.

The furniture pre-account was the subject of another general revenue notice. Although revenue from mobile pre-account in 2016 remained below initial expectations, revenue at the end of 2016/January 2017 experienced a final boost that reflects an anticipative effect on the increase in mobile pre-account from 27 to 30 percent on 1 January 2017. Since this anticipative effect constitutes a shift from 2017 revenue to 2016 revenue, revenue from the tariff increase is now no longer estimated at 345 million for 2017, as anticipated in the initial budget, but at 276 million euros. The additional impact of the increase of the rate to 30% in the table is therefore not more than 40 million euros (from +345 million in 2016 to 385 million in 2017) but more than 149 million (from +127 million to 276 million).

Tax regulation is another issue that has been discussed. In fact, the revenue from the tax regularization was estimated at 250 million euros in the initial budget. The budgetary control made it clear that this amount would not be realised, because after the sixth state reform the establishment of a system of fiscal regularization has become much more complex than before.

As a result of this delay and the need to conclude cooperation agreements with the regions, revenue was estimated at EUR 22.5 million for 2016 and the adjustment for 2017 was also made.

I note that the increase in federal revenues from fiscal regularization by €50 million in the recent budget control was included as a technical correction in the general budget table.

What has changed in the discussion in the committee?

On this issue, I continue to discuss constructively with the trade unions. I have seen them several times in the last few months. In recent weeks, progress has been made in these discussions. Some of the concerns have already been met, such as career trajectories, satellite offices, the search for a better balance between versatility and specialization.

As for the other aspects, discussions are still ongoing. I hope they can continue in the same constructive atmosphere that I have felt so far. This is the only way to actually ⁇ results. It is true that the staff framework within the public service has dropped sharply in recent years. Increased efficiency and especially developed digitalization are naturally partly the origin and do not necessarily lead to a decrease in tax revenues.

So I come to the more general comments.

Mr. Laaouej asked me for a few comments on the evolution of inflation figures. When I compare the figures of inflation in Belgium and the euro area, I find that for this year, the forecasts are already quite close: 2.1 for Belgium versus 1.6 for the euro area. In 2018, we will be almost at the same level, at 1.3 and 1.5 respectively.

A shift occurred in 2016, when the euro area was at 0.2% inflation against 2% for us. One of the reasons for this shift was the increase in indirect taxes we experienced, which is the counterpart of the reductions in employment tax that we organized through the tax shift.

It is also important to note, in this case, that even with this higher inflation, we have ⁇ ined the indexation of income, the first effects of which occurred in May of this year. The effect on purchasing power of this relative rise in inflation was therefore not sensible at the level of income, with indexation remaining intact after the index jump.

Regarding the mobility budget, we are finalising the government bill. It took a lot of time, but it must also be taken into account that this is a high-tech exercise.

Not a lot of tax items are needed to organize such a principle of cash for cars.

With regard to the Big Three – ISOC, Tax Justice and Savings – we are working on it. We will try to find good solutions on the three fields in the coming days. This time, I totally agree with Mr. Van Rompuy: the best thing to do is not comment, and so I will not.

We have heard the responses of the ministers. We are not convinced, but we will not resume the debate.

I invite everyone to clearly see that in the forecasts of the Plan Bureau, even if there is a potential resorption of structural deficit, it will return to the rise in 2020. The question I asked you, and you do not answer, is how you will find 9 billion euros if you maintain the balance goal. The more fundamental question is whether you intend to maintain this balance goal. I think you will not succeed. This is not a lack of will, but it would be time to clarify things by acknowledging that you will not reach the balance in 2019, nor after, and that, therefore, this is no longer a goal of the government.