Proposition 54K2689

Projet de loi contenant le budget des Voies et Moyens de l'année budgétaire 2018.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

Oct. 20, 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 PP VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Olivier Maingain (MR) abstained from voting.

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Discussion ¶

Dec. 13, 2017 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

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

Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen, Ladies and Gentlemen, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have arrived at the plenary session for our discussion on the 2018 budget. I say it from the beginning, our discussion and our debate will be biased by the fact that your government has been delayed – this is an euphemism! – in the filing of bills that are, however, intrinsically and politically linked to the budget, in particular the corporate tax reform and the securities tax.

So is there anyone in this assembly who will not admit that the budgetary impacts of the corporate tax reform are so significant that it should have been discussed at the same time as the budget? Unfortunately, this was not possible. You made another choice, the result of your delays and your unpredictability.

With regard to this budget, the first notable fact is of course the postponement of the balance beyond 2018. It was, however, one of your mantras: the return to balance in 2018. As early as 2014, however, we said to you: “Attention, shit!” We told you that your tax shift was not financed. And we told you to be careful of the bad reports of the Court of Auditors. You answered us at the time: "Return Effect, No Worry!" Three years later, you are in a situation of budget failure and forced to give up balance in 2018.

You changed your speech. Today, you say you don’t want to slow the recovery, even though Belgium’s economic growth rate is lower than the euro area average. We have been telling you this for at least three years. Nothing has improved! Didn’t it come to your mind that it was your economic and fiscal policy that stopped the recovery? This is the paradox today: to justify that you are not returning to balance, you invoke a cause that you have provoked yourself, namely a relief in Bern!

This budget, like all those that have been deposited by your government, is banal and misleading. We said it in the committee. We repeat it here. You take a different macroeconomic parameter from that indicated to you by both the Institute of National Accounts and the Federal Bureau of the Plan or the National Bank. You take 1.8% growth rate instead of 1.7% economic growth. You do, it should be emphasized, despite the law that requires you to take the parameters of the Institute of National Accounts, itself dependent on the forecasts of the National Bank and the Bureau of the Plan.

You prefer, in doing so, to respond to the sirenes of the FEB, which, in fact, stands at 1.8%. This is not the first and ⁇ not the last time you blindly follow the FEB. Rather than reserve a possible good surprise for budget control, you choose the ease you call "optimism", which I call "irresponsibility". This makes you earn 368 million euros, including act. We challenge them from a methodological point of view but also from a good budget management point of view.

A second adventurous choice you make is that you swipe the forecasts and analyses of the European Commission on the evolution of the structural balance from the back of the hand. In terms of the forecast differences between your trajectory and that of the Commission, it is a differential of 0.4% of the structural deficit GDP of which we are talking in 2018, or more than 2 billion euros that, according to the Commission, are missing in your 2018 budget.

Your argument is to say that, in the past, the figures of the Commission have been denied by the achievements. I would like to give you the argument. How many times have you been wrong, you, the federal government? Should I recall the saga of tax revenues from natural persons returning to the Regions that you had underestimated by more than 750 million euros and which, over time, have become 600 million euros? Should I recall the methodological uncertainties relating to the assessment of tax revenues, to such a point that you had to provide a buffer, given the uncertainty. Should all the criticisms be repeated? The Court of Auditors would need a bottle on the chronic overestimation of the performance of the new measures. Is the case of excise taxes enough for you or should I also talk about tax regularization and the opacity of the Caiman tax? Should I spare you the reminder of the pants of the re-design of the administration which was supposed to bring you, in cruise speed, more than 700 million euros and which today have completely disappeared.

In short, you are in the wrong position to show such lightness in relation to the figures advanced by the European Commission.

We have always been clear: we do not adhere to the Commission’s budgetary fetishism, ⁇ when it translates into a policy of austerity. However, we consider that you are not in a position to scan the figures and estimates of that same institution from the back of the hand. It sends you very visible signals.

I think, for example, of the tax on securities accounts. The Commission urges you to withhold not 254 million euros, but 175 million euros, or a difference of 79 million euros. It also asks you to lower the estimate of the return of the fight against tax fraud, for at least 25 million. It also tells you that the extra 100 million you expect on real estate investment funds are not serious. The same Commission doubts – and this is very important – of the alleged budget neutrality of the reduction of social contributions in the construction sector and estimates, there again, that the cost to be expected is at least 100 million.

When it comes to tax regularization, she doubts your figures – and in this case the facts already give her right – when she observes the situation in 2017 and asks you to reduce the veil by at least 175 million.

I hear the list of complaints submitted by my colleague. However, when I questioned the Commission and pointed out that it was playing the “vogelpik” in its way of calculating revenues, it proved incapable of answering and explaining the method it was following.

We will submit the comments of Mr. Piedboeuf to the European Commission.

No problem, because I did it myself.

She will surely be impressed.

I did it myself, Mr. Laaouej, and I confirm that the representative of the Commission could not justify his figures.

And that seemed to impress you, Mr. Piedboeuf. I remember it as if it was yesterday!

The Commission also considers that you are overwhelming your figures, in terms of the yield of the measure on the maintenance of the employment of older workers by at least EUR 32 million.

Add the uncertainties raised by the Court of Auditors, because – you see, Mr Piedboeuf – the European Commission is not the only one to doubt your figures: there is also the Court of Auditors. With you, of course, when institutions don’t align with your figures, it’s that they’re wrong. Therefore, you have a chronic inability to question yourself. I take note of this, but this does not guarantee a return to balance in 2018 or even in 2019. I believe, on the contrary, that if you persist in this path, you will continue to plummet the state accounts. You just need to remember from time to time that, behind these, there is the wallet of our fellow citizens!

As for the Court of Auditors, there is also a flower of uncertainties and approximations. This is how, by a pencil, you revalued, without explanation, the yield of old measures – more or less 100 million euros for pricing transfers that you qualify, by the way, as tax fraud in your tables. I wonder in the name of what. We do not know. This may happen in the corporate tax reform project. But today, we do not have it. You add 50 million euros related to the reform filed by Minister Geens on the criminal transaction. There, again, you are drawing plans on the comet. This is another bet. You add another 50 million – that’s the pompon! The Caiman tax is called a transparent tax. But nothing is more obscure because you don’t give the means to assess the yield of this tax since you refuse to enter and make a separate code appear in the statement. You are investing 50 million euros. This is uncontrollable, according to the Court of Auditors. This is the “volgelpik”, Mr. Piedboeuf! This is an opacity that you deliberately maintain and which shows all your discomfort since you refuse, despite the demands of the opposition, to provide a separate code in the statement.

Despite the disastrous experience of raising the excise duties on spirits with a decline in revenue related to cross-border purchases, you continue to raise the consumption taxes by counting on revenue of several tens of millions of euros, including 75 million on soda. If this is not punitive taxation, we will have to explain it! It is so easy to go "tapping" in the pocket of households and families in particular.

What are all these failures for you? You can ask it. You do not learn any lessons. Let us, however, continue this catalogue of aberrations with the famous measure of the 500 euros per month defiscalized, deparafiscalized.

The SPF Finances, in a note sent to the Court of Auditors, expects a loss of €109 million in social contributions and €42,5 million in tax revenues, which represents a total of €150 million. It does not seem to stop you. You consider that there too, by magic, the return effects will allow you to regain balance. Nothing is more false, of course.

So that when you add the 2 billion that you are missing – it is the Commission who says it – to the whole contested and disputed yield of these new or old measures that are revalued according to your terms, you get to a budget hole of more than 3 billion euros. This is what you are missing in the 2018 budget!

These are three billion euros that you return to later, marking the irresponsibility of your management of public finances. From the beginning, this management was marked by impostures, by the non-financing of the tax shift, pointed out by the European Commission and, before it, by the National Bank. It has become today a budget ball that you will drag until the end of this legislature, and far beyond!

It is on this basis that, in a chaotic way, you are preparing to present us a corporate tax reform with a budget volume of five billion euros. The National Bank speaks of plausible hypothesis, but when asked to certify budget neutrality, it prefers to say that there is more and there is less. She prefers to say that she does not have a model that allows her to evaluate the issue, returning responsibility to the SPF Finance. It consents itself to work on a static and non-dynamic model. In short, it invites you to be cautious. Nevertheless, you continue to move forward.

I draw your attention to the fact that three-quarters of the financing of your corporate tax reform is based on two measures: the abolition of notional interests and the transposition of European directives aimed at limiting the erosion of the tax base.

On notional interest, you are dependent on the evolution of interest rates over ten years. Who, today, can guarantee us that these rates will evolve upwards, as you claim in your budget cleansing? No one can say it. No one is in the secret of the European Central Bank. However, you expect almost 50% of this measure to finance your corporate tax reform.

As for the transposition of directives, everything will depend on the extent you give it, but above all on the behavior of economic agents. Because if there is one thing that history teaches us, it is that in terms of corporate tax base, there is a conjunctual effect and an effect that depends on the behavior of economic agents. All of this, you sweep it!

The Court itself does not fail to remind you that your estimates are based on the figures of 2014 or 2015, which, in terms of corporate taxation, already belongs to antiquity so this plate is ⁇ conjunctual and related to immediate and contemporary effects. It is sufficient to see the continuous evolution of the international environment, the price of raw materials, the environment of taxation and a whole series of other parameters of macroeconomic type.

In short, you take the risk – a heavy responsibility! To sustainably and structurally threaten our public accounts. With this other measure that the National Bank is valid at 500 million euros after the SPF Finance gave it its ratings, no one is able to prove that this figure will not be higher.

In doing so, you create a new fiscal jewel for tax advisors of all kinds and in particular those who advise large groups that will allow, there too, to empty corporate tax revenues.

For all these reasons, we urge you to be very careful. Especially when it comes to spending, it’s no better. Once again, the Court of Auditors points out the sacrificed departments, justice in particular. During the discussion on the State of the Union, I already mentioned the closure of the register of the Brussels Court of First Instance due to insalubrity. It must now be discovered that on the side of Mons, magistrates and lawyers are organizing a collection to finance the purchase of a defibrillator. This is where we are: a disastered department that challenges and threatens the exercise of our fellow citizens’ fundamental rights. We will have the opportunity to return to them in the thematic interventions.

A word about health care. There would also be a lot to say. Your government today plays cautiously and for a reason, healthcare in 2017 - 900 million euros of savings - a growth rate of just 0.5%, or a third of the budgetary effort to be made and that you have put on our social security, specifically our health care. The consequences for patients, especially the most fragile, are still felt today and will still be felt tomorrow: increase in the price of antibiotics, end of the repayment of corticosteroids, nasal sprays, increase in the price of anti-acid drugs, reduction in the repayment of certain drugs, decrease in the repayment of physiotherapy for people with fribromyalgia, indexation of the MAF ceilings and I pass. There are also all these savings on hospitals as they are in full change due to the reform of the hospital landscape. There is also this decision aimed at freezing new recognition applications for the opening of medical houses while recent studies show that without these medical houses, a significant number of precarious people would not be able to care for themselves. They are not even mentioned in the Minister’s general policy note. It is deplorable!

As no one was spared by your dark cuts, there were also impressive savings on the fees of healthcare providers, providers who quickly manifested their ras-le-bol. Negotiations of conventions and agreements have never been so difficult.

There was a real breaking of confidence. By all means, you try to make us believe that our health care is saved. However, new initiatives are even being taken to reinforce this unacceptable deflation.

You tell us that you have resumed the growth standard – 1.5%, I recall – and that you have fully made available the indexing mass. You say that the 2018 budget will be approximately 776 million euros higher than in 2017. I remind you that the technical estimates set the needs level at 238 million above the budget held and that this budget is still well below the normal evolution of the needs set at 2.2% by the Plan Bureau.

This is where, without doubt, you may be advancing your measure regarding the future planned reimbursement for psychological care – 22.5 million, say you – a budget that will ⁇ not meet the ever-growing needs in this area. In short, on health, we can see, dark cuts prolong and strengthen at the expense of patients.

There would also be a lot to say about the investment plan for which one always asks how it will be financed and what the prime minister carries. The Prime Minister announced a raise of €5 billion in bond funds to finance the energy transition. I wonder how he will do it. I think he might come soon to explain it. We are curious to know the developments.

We can also lament and condemn the motives, Mr. Minister of Finance, that lead you to sell the state assets, Belfius in particular. You are clearly in the abyss, failing to cover the structural deficit. You need to pay a loan on the land of debt discharge. The only solution you find is to resell financial assets, but you are not yet able to tell us if, yes or not, the loss of dividends will be compensated by the reduction of interest charges. No one believes it and at this stage we are still waiting for a demonstration.

Dear colleagues, the only thing left to the government to try to get out of it is to advance its alleged employment outcomes. Here too, your deception is unmasked. You attribute from the beginning the National Bank’s forecasts for the period 2017 to 2022, i.e. the creation of 65,000 units of employment on average per year. You are talking about an improvement in the employment rate of 0.5 percent from 2015 to 2016, or a shift from 67.2 percent to 67.7 percent.

I will make several observations. As the National Bank and the Plan Bureau have always shown, even with unchanged policy, jobs are created. I refer to the forecasts of both the National Bank and the Plan Bureau for 2014: only in 2014, 19 000 additional units; in 2015, 42 000 units; in 2016, 59 000 units. That is a total of 120,000 units that you can not attribute to your tax shift whose effects in cruise speed will only occur in 2019 and whose actual beginning dates from the end of 2016, beginning of 2017.

Mr. Laaouej, the substantial debate on public health will follow later, but I would like to briefly correct your limiting list of measures, in the sense that the FOD Economy misrepresents you about the prices of medicines, which have fallen globally

In your discussion you refer to some phenomena and measures and you point to rising prices, but the global measures, which are important and have the greatest impact on the majority of the medicines, such as the patent cliff, and which the minister has taken, you have not mentioned at all. You are therefore conducting a very one-sided argument, in which you, as always, provide very one-sided, completely incomplete information. The global impact on the budget and on what people have to pay, you have not outlined. I feel sorry for that. I would like to talk about the measures, but then you must outline them in their entirety and their overall impact. I find it strange that you give only part of the information and sketch a one-sided and mostly incorrect story.

The same applies to the indexation of wages, which will finally be applied to healthcare providers in 2018, just because resources are released for it. In your public health policy, this has never happened, because linear savings have always been implemented across the sector, which has brought us into those problems today, causing so much money to be lost and not going to the sick.

Finally, as regards your comment on the reimbursement of a psychologist, you argue that much too little is done, but you have held that ministerial post for so long, why did you not realize that reimbursement then?

Madame Van Camp, do you challenge the increase in the price of antibiotics? Do you contest the rise in the price of nasal sprays? Are you challenging the reduced reimbursement of physical therapy fees for people with fibromyalgia? Do you argue with all the things I mentioned?

You do not dispute them. This means that these things have happened, that they have a negative impact on a number of patients. These are things you have done and you must assume! It is too easy to say that we need to look at the macro-budgetary aspects and if the paths evolve globally! People don’t care if certain positions are evolving globally! People, when they go to the pharmacist, they see that it costs more! When they go to the doctor or the cinema, they see that it costs more! This is the real life, Mrs. Van Camp! Not your absolute numbers that represent strictly nothing!

Mr. Laaouej, I would like to add another element to your very clear listing, in particular the demolition of the district health centers. They provide the most democratic and most effective direct health care. There are many district health centers in Gent and the figures prove that they are the way to deal with health, especially for people who have difficulty. That is exactly what the government has destroyed. So do not tell me that one is in favour of a health care accessible to everyone if one demolishes the most accessible system, recognized by all studies.

Yes, I had forgotten in this list obviously also the increase in the price of anti-acid drugs, which strikes hard a large number of patients.

I would like to add one point to Mr. Laaouej’s remarks.

Because, even if you consider from a macro-budgetary point of view the health care budget, it is hard to see that a budget post has exploded, namely that of medicines and negotiations between the Minister of Health and pharmaceutical firms. Furthermore, urgent measures had to be taken to limit and control this budget explosion. These are all other sectors that have had to make savings to keep the overall budget in balance. Even by looking at the health care budget macro, budgets have obviously exploded in some sectors and it is the nearby health professionals, and obviously the most impoverished patients, who have suffered the consequences to ensure the standard wanted by the government.

Mrs. Gerkens, I didn’t want to venture in the macro-budgetary field. I leave it to Ms. Van Camp, but I can take back the aggregate figures of the cuts that will take place during her legislature in healthcare.

This is ⁇ impressive! Healthcare alone: 2.6 billion euros! This is the result of your policy, Mrs. Van Camp! So, whether you go back on the macro-budgetary level or on the increase in the price of certain medicines, anyway, the figures give you wrong. Sorry to tell you!

I return to the job section.

So I said that even with unchanged policy, the employment curve is still rising. Professor De Grauwe, Professor Peersman proved this very well. This means that due to slight economic growth, you have a job creation. What’s important to consider is whether the creation of these jobs is due to your tax shift. The question is here!

In this regard, I would like to recall what the National Bank said in a note addressed to the government and which made the inventory of the evolution of economic parameters on the basis of the reforms undertaken by the government. “As an amount of 4.7 billion euros, or about 0.9% of GDP, is not financed by the tax shift, in the calculations relating to the tax shift scenario, whether it is the impact on economic growth, employment volume, etc., the overall result is biased.” You will find this passage on page 4, 1st tiret.

This means that the National Bank does not know what will be the negative effects of the measures you will take to fill your gaps, whether it is new taxes or new cuts that will plunge domestic, private or public demand, and therefore employment. It also means that the National Bank is not deceived and that it knows that your tax shift is a budget bullet that does not have the expected return effects, and that since then, you have deliberately created a budget bubble that artificially embellishes your forecasts of job creation and effect on GDP growth.

Again about the National Bank, again to try to determine what is the share of jobs that find their cause in the tax shift, I quote what Ms. De Wachter, director at the National Bank, says in the Knack of 14 November 2017: “In 2016, only 4,700 jobs were created through the tax shift. In 2017, 7,800 find their cause in the tax shift."And she expects 7,100 jobs for 2018. This represents 8%, 11% and 15% of the jobs created for 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively. And it is a director of the National Bank who says it.

Should I remind you, Mr. Minister, the budget cost of the tax shift until 2017? You yourself cited in the press the figure of 4.4 billion euros. Since the entry into office of your government until today, the budget cost of the tax shift is 4.4 billion euros. And by 2019, an additional 4.9 billion will be added. A total of 9.3 billion.

Should I pay you a fraction of the cost per job created in 2016 and 2017, with a tax shift budget cost of 4.4 billion euros per year? The fraction is very simple: 4.4 billion divided by 12.500 jobs, or the sum of the jobs that would find their cause in the tax shift in 2016 and in 2017, this makes 352.000 euros of employment. It is edifying!

I therefore invite you to stop saying, every time you are in difficulty on the budgetary level, on the economic level, on the rebound level, “Yes, but we created jobs.” With what? We just demonstrated, with the National Bank, that this is false, and that the budget cost is colossal for eventually a relatively marginal job creation, job creation that you attribute to the tax shift in a totally false and misleading way.

Another point in the field of employment is always.

When you look at the data of Eurostat, both in terms of the evolution of the employment rate and the evolution of domestic employment, you find that your government is, each time, less well than the average of the European countries. With an employment rate of 67.7%, we are at first a long way from the 73.2% target agreed with Europe for 2020 but, above all, we are clearly below the average of 71.1% of the EU countries. But what is most notable is that both domestic employment growth and employment rate growth are clearly stronger in other EU countries than in Belgium. For example, the employment rate is growing twice as fast in the euro area as in Belgium, which is 1% in the euro area compared to 0.5% in Belgium. I think of the evolution of domestic employment. It is worse than the Eurozone. We can also give you numbers. So, whether it’s on the employment rate or the evolution of the absolute number of domestic jobs, you do less well than other countries.

The reality is that it is the international climate that mainly explains the creation of jobs and not the reforms you have carried out. Professor Peersman of the University of Ghent does not say anything else. It clearly shows that the jobs created are essentially because of the economic situation and the international environment. He does so with an international comparison to show that other countries are doing much better than we do. This is a demonstration that I invite you to review.

Mr. Laaouej, you refer to the study of the National Bank. I read there that from the start of the tax shift in 2016 to 2020 the job creation is therefore estimated at 56 000. The National Bank says in its macroeconomic approach that a quarter of new jobs are due to tax shifts.

Of course there is the international conjuncture, but the government, through the measures it has taken on competitiveness, with the index jump and the reduction of social contributions, has made our economy more competitive and the growth of the economy is determined in Belgium by exports and investments.

I have the figures of the Credit Bank on exports with me. This will increase by 5 percent next year. Investments will also increase by 3 to 4 percent. The engine has been launched internationally, but the tax shift creates a quarter more jobs and we are now more competitive than before.

You can’t ignore that we create 50,000 jobs a year. In five years, this will be 250,000 jobs. I thought that you, as a socialist, should be glad that 250,000 jobs are added and that the purchasing power increases by 2.1 percent of the real available income.

I do not understand your speech. The real available income of the population increases by 2 percent and 250 000 jobs are created and you speak of a social catastrophe. That is the essence of your speech, with which I do not agree at all.

I remind my colleagues of the agreement that interruptions are limited to two minutes. I give the word to Mr Bogert.

I fully agree with what Mr. Van Rompuy said.

The question is, of course, what is the alternative for the government.

That alternative has been rolled out by your party in your congress over the past days and weeks. The alternative is the 32-hour working week, which we know does not cost 40 billion euros at a time, but 40 billion euros each year. That’s more than the entire federal budget you’re pushing forward as an alternative. You say here that the budget is not in order, but your alternative costs 40 billion and is not financed at all. What credibility do you have to argue in the debate that the figures are not true? This does not only apply to your party. Also PTB-GO!, Green and Ecolo make the proposal of the 32-hour working week, sp.a makes a proposal that lies something between the two. That story costs 40 billion euros, which means the economy is shrinking by 20 percent. When the economy shrinks by 20 percent, pensions, social security and healthcare also shrinks by 20 percent. Everything in the country then goes down by 20 percent.

This proposal will be announced at a large congress. A week later, you are declaring here on the floor that there is too little money for health care. You have to dare!

Mr. Van Rompuy, I think you didn’t listen to me.

I began by putting out the two main arguments you regularly mobilize to justify the budget failure you are currently in and also the efforts and austerity you have inflicted on our fellow citizens.

I started by saying that you attribute to yourself the National Bank forecasts for the period 2017 to 2022 with the creation of 65,000 units of jobs on average per year. If you multiply by five, we get to your impressive number! This is an average weighing.

Then I suggested that you look more deeply to see what is actually related to your tax shift. On this subject, I said two things. First, the National Bank tells us, in an August 2017 note, on page 4, 1st tiret: "Since an amount of 4.7 billion is not financed in the calculations, the overall result is biased."

What does the National Bank mean? The National Bank makes forecasts. It tells us what will happen in 2021 and 2022, or after tomorrow. Based on the proposed scenarios (tax shift reducing social contributions and personal tax, etc.), the National Bank foresees certain amounts. This does not mean that the economy has been waiting for you to turn! The economy is not limited to the federal government’s tax shift or the decisions you have made in this regard. Economics is about entrepreneurs and workers who, every morning, get up to go to work. This is also the economy.

The National Bank applies a model, which takes into account the economic reality, to which it adds some of your measures. Then we do a simulation. But the National Bank warns that since the tax shift is not financed, the figures are biased. What does she mean? She knows that you will have to make the effort to return to the budget balance and finds that your budget returns effects are not at the appointment. She knows that you will have to make a whole series of decisions. There are no quantities: consumption taxes, which are still found in the current budget, cuts in social security and public services. These measures will plummet citizens’ income, redistribution, private and public demand. All these measures will negatively affect macroeconomic forecasts and results.

You talk to me about predictions; I talk about concrete outcomes.

And then there are the statements of Ms. De Wachter, of the National Bank. You tell me about this institution; I answer you by quoting its director. She identified what jobs were attributable to the tax shift in 2016, in 2017 and, she says, in 2018. There, we see well that this aspect is marginal compared to a budget cost of more than 4 billion – an amount that has already been committed. Here is my demonstration, Mr. Van Rompuy! You’re talking about predictions; I’m already talking about achievements. We will never agree on one point: you are in the prophecy; I am in the reality.

La réalité de l'interview de Mme De Wachter dans le Knack: "52 100 additional jobs in the period between 2015 and 2020 above the normal job growth is really nothing. The reduction of employer contributions, partly focused on low wages, ensures the most new jobs at the lowest possible budget cost. The tax shift is therefore a very efficient measure.”

I read what I read. No words should be put in the mouth of Mrs. De Wachter.

But keep reading.

Mr. Laaouej, I have already said it a few times in the committee, the financing of the tax shift remains a problem, also for next year. I have never denied it. On the other hand, whoever thought global revenue would drop in 2017 was wrong. They have increased by almost 6 percent. For 2017, employment contributed to the financing of the budget through the corporate advance fee and advance payments. Your reasoning is absolutely incorrect.

I am not a man of great prophecies. On the contrary, I base myself on the real figures and on the real matters that we were able to detect very clearly during the committee discussions.

We will not agree, Mr. Van Rompuy.

I repeat that I speak of concrete achievements, tangible while you project yourself in forecasts of the National Bank which says, itself, that, for half, the tax shift is not financed. This means that a Damocles sword weighs on the shoulders of our public finances, that at some point you will have to solve this problem and that it will again go through sacrifices that you will impose either at public request or to our fellow citizens. And I will have to explain how by suffocating, for example, private demand, how by suffocating and suffocating people with taxes or cuts in health care, it improves the support of the relief. It is a quadrature, Mr. Van Rompuy, from which you will not get out.

I can understand that you stick to macroeconomic forecasts, but I invite you to return to the reality of numbers and achievements.

We are now in the middle of the legislature. In 2014 and 2015, both were sent to the figure of work assumptions. According to you, the National Bank had spoken of 200,000 jobs, etc., to which you were answered: "Attention, budget crack!"Now we have the achievements and even this, you don't want to take into account.

Yes, there are additional jobs. There are a lot of jobs that, anyway, are created regardless of the policies carried out because, simply, the economy does not wait for the Michel government to get on the road and work. In addition, there are the measures you have introduced, but of which you are told how much they need to be nuanced due to budgetary bias. I will not return to this point.

Can I ask you to conclude?

You ask me to conclude, Mr. President, but I have been interrupted several times.

I give you 10 minutes of speech time.

Mr. Van Rompuy, I invite you to read the work of Professor Peersman. But maybe you’ll tell me that he’s also wrong. The University of Ghent is also wrong! You are free to claim it. As far as I am concerned, I do not think so, because they agree with the findings of the National Bank, according to which the majority of jobs originate in the international context and in the international environment.

Unfortunately I don’t have time to make an inventory of all the false good reasons proving that you are wrong. However, let me address the question of the available income, because it is one of the other antiennes that...

I would like to answer, but in this case, my speech time should be extended.

I invite you to prosecute Mr. Laaouej.

I have no problem. I knew a party that had proposed a 20 billion euro tax reform during the election campaign. There was an error in the simulator. In terms of numbers, when we have hosted Ms. Galant in its own majority, I am not sure that we are well placed to give lessons on this subject.

This is an ad hominem argument. Address your remarks to Mr. Bogaert who pulls the debate down! I cannot do anything.

I would like to continue, Mr. President.

Mr. Bogaert, I have heard you, in the committee, criticize the government and especially Mrs. Minister of Budget by taking the European Commission as an argument. This does not prevent you from staying in the banks of the majority. In terms of inconsistency, I don’t know if you are also well placed to take the lesson.

The [...]

There is no problem!

It would take me ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, but...

You are continuing, Mr. Laaouej.

Mr. Bogert, you imagine for a moment that we will decline any form of debate. Not only do we assume it, but we claim it. To you as to anyone else, we will tell you why this is a very good idea.

The [...]

Of course, Mr Bogart!

At the same time, I do not feel that your analyses are very much heard. I also do not want a debate that leads to nothing. I would like to argue, but on the basis of facts and figures.

Mr. Van Rompuy, with regard to the available income, I took advantage of these few days to refine your reflection. It consisted of saying to me, “You are mistaken. "It is true that I always said that the index jump was equivalent to a 12.5 billion point on the wage mass. It is huge. On an average salary, this represents a decrease of 400 euros per year per worker. It is much. Add to this the consumption taxes! All this did not commit to increasing the available income. The increase in the price of medicines, cuts in health care, etc. You have weakened the position. You say, “This is false! Look, the National Bank says that by the horizon of 2019, there will be a 2.7% increase in available income!"So, I quote the National Bank about its macroeconomic forecasts: "The available income will increase by 2.7% in 2019," but she adds: "This increase is again neutralized at 1.1% by financing initiatives due, both to the rise in indirect taxes and non-work-related financing. By balance, the tax shift scenario shows an increase in the available income of households of 1.6 per cent in 2019.”

I add, however, an additional element because last time we did not have the opportunity to go to the end of the analysis. What is the share of capital income and labor income in the increase of household income? A methodological way to be able to pinpoint the question is to identify the evolution of the salary per employee. In other words, it is to see how the salary per employee has evolved over the period. And well, Mr. Van Rompuy, I’m sorry to tell you that on the basis of the figures of the European Commission dated 9 November 2017, for the period from 2015 to 2019, there is a 1% loss. This means that the salary per employee has decreased by 1%. I have the numbers. We can transmit them to you.

What does this mean? This means that we must look elsewhere for the increase in the available income which, in other words, gives only a general indication, indicates nothing about the redistribution or distribution between the income categories. This is an aspect that I have often drew your attention to. You increase indirect taxes, so you decrease the redistributive effect of taxation. This means that it is another thing that increases and, in particular, the income of capital. This is seen, indeed, by the overall increase in capital income.

Mr. Laaouej, I have been waiting a long time to intervene, but you continue to insist a little and a little.

The reality is that through the policy of this government, through the tax shift, more jobs have been created. More jobs were created than would have happened if the tax shift had not been introduced. That is the reality. This is confirmed.

Mr. Laaouej, if someone who had a benefit yesterday has a job tomorrow and if the salary he receives for that job is lower than the average salary spent on the employees, then the average salary of the employees drops, that is true, but there is someone more at work and that person has a higher income than he had when he had a benefit. This is also a reality.

It is a reality that despite everything you cite here, the tax pressure has decreased.

Mr. Laaouej, I would like to ask you to answer very briefly to a very simple question.

Do you want to live in Belgium of 2013 with a debt level that went through the roof, with a total tax rate of 52.7 percent, with a negative trade balance, with a negative internal spending and with a high unemployment rate? Or do you choose Belgium in 2017, where we lower the debt rate, where we have lowered the tax rate to 50,1 percent, with a positive trade balance, with an increasing export, with a negative investment rhythm in 2013 that in 2017 went to +3, +4 and in 2018 will still grow, with an internal spending that grows by 1,7 percent, making your whole story of that negative purchasing power not right?

Mr Laououej, give me a simple answer. Are you choosing Belgium of 2013 with those moving figures or are you choosing Belgium of 2017 with which we are among the European leaders? It is up to you to choose.

I think, Mr. Van de Velde, that when it comes to the situation of 2013, some who are with you in the current majority probably remember – because, together, we had to manage them and make courageous decisions – the effects of a debrided finance, of a finance that caused colossal damage. Damage that is still felt today. For if we have to face today the need to sanitize our public finances and to proceed to a de-indebtment of the State, it is because in a few months, the debt rate of the Belgian State has swollen by more than 20%. In fact, it was necessary to proceed with the banking sector with liquidity that we did not have. So we had to borrow at interest rates that, at the time, climbed up to 5 or 6%. Remember the history of Leterme Loan! Dear members of the CD&V! In short, we were in a context of rising public debt and public finances, induced by an economic crisis, itself a consequence of a crisis in the financial sector.

Yes, Mr. Van de Velde, we just need to remember the chronology of events. I repeat that interest rates were ⁇ high. These rates had nothing in common with what you know today, since they are, at the moment, almost symbolic. And nevertheless, you are not able to absorb the structural deficit in the trajectory in which you have committed yourself, namely to bring the balance back in 2018.

And then, I must also, ⁇ , remind you of two or three other elements that I find quite important. Indeed, the situation was extremely difficult during the previous legislature, but despite all, we had a higher growth rate than that of the euro area. Mr Van de Velde. This is not the case with your current government.

So I note that you are happy that you are currently living in a country where all those parameters are no longer in the red – which is of course regrettable for your ideological thoughts – but that all those parameters are perfectly in the green. I note that you actually agree with that and that I think is a good conclusion.

Mr. Van de Velde, this is rhetoric.

Who have I not answered yet?

and Mr Klaps. Did I say there was no job creation? Has anyone heard that I said that? There is job creation. I minimize the cause of job creation related to the tax shift. In other words, I challenge the fact that in a decisive way it would be due to the tax shift.

For the rest – because in the end, it’s something I’ve scammed – we had a big debate about the quality of the jobs created. I have been reading the latest figures from the ONSS on the quality of these jobs. Unfortunately, you have a majority of part-time jobs. Add to this all the precarious jobs you develop, which you continue to develop. There are flexi-jobs, of course, but my colleague Ms. Kitir regularly goes up to the tribune to denounce the Deliveroo system. There is the uberization of employment and we can add to this what you are also preparing with your measure of occasional work of 6000 euros. So you are expanding the area of precariousness. Not only are the jobs you claim to create with the tax shift not in the proportions you claim, but in addition, you open the valves of the precarization of employment. This is the balance sheet of your government, Mr. Klaps.

So I answered about the available income. There is a decrease in salary per employee. This clearly means that in the remnant of the increase in the available income, we must most ⁇ see an increase in the income of capital, to a large extent, which is distributed unequally. I remind you of the study of the National Bank that specifies that in Belgium, only 11% of households own listed shares; to take another figure, stock capital is concentrated in the hands of 15% of the population.

As you can see, the government’s economic and fiscal policy leads to very bad results. Public accounts are in a state of great uncertainty; you do not get out of it. Nothing makes it possible to attribute to your reforms the job creation you boast of. The salary per employee is, in the period 2015-2019, decreasing. You increase the available income of capital, but you decrease that of labour. This is a record increase in consumption taxes. You will make, with the index jump, a pinch on the wage mass of 12.5 billion for the period 2015-2019. And you will make for more than 6.5 billion euros of savings on social security over the same period.

You have saved more than three billion euros in the SNCB budget.

I will not mention the state of degradation of justice here, because it would take several hours to talk about it.

This is your austerity policy. You sign a double failure – budgetary and economic – while degrading workers’ social rights and their social protection.

Budgetary, economic and social uncertainty: you are the government of uncertainty. For the good of our fellow citizens, we will without hesitation vote against your budget and against your policy.

Colleagues, I just inform you that Mr. Laaouej stood on the tribune for exactly 57 minutes.

Mr. Laaouej was at the tribune for 57 minutes but there were interruptions for a total of 14 minutes. I am increasing the speech time. We are far from what was agreed. I would like to say this, but we have time because this is an important debate.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, allow me to return to my first days in the green seats of the House, a moment before I begin the discussion of the budget for 2018.

That was 2010, along with many members of my group and a number of members of other groups: we had just known the banking crisis, the government debt crisis began again, we had saved Dexia for a second time and then the government-Di Rupo joined. That government-Di Rupo had reduced the structural deficit from 4.1 percent of GDP to 3.1 percent, an improvement of 1 percent of GDP. She did so through what she called savings, savings that actually made the government’s seizure up to 55,1 percent. This is a contradictory term, if you ask me. The tax pressure was also further pushed up by 2.7% of GDP to a murderous level of 52%. The previous government was actually characterized by a Southern European mentality. How did other countries do this? If we compare that period, we see that in the Netherlands the deficit was reduced by half and that in Germany a deficit of 4.2 percent was turned into a surplus on the current budget. We did not go beyond a quarter of the exercise that was waiting for us, a quarter of the exercise of 4.1 pro. Further we did not come.

Let us look at where we stand today. It has been mentioned several times, among others by Mr. Klaps. Both the friend and the intellectually honest enemy must acknowledge that we are much better off today.

The government seizure has been reduced from 55 pro to 51.8 pro. This is a very strong decline. In today’s money, that’s about 13 billion euros a year that the government spends less than if the policy had not changed. At the same time, we have chosen to reduce the tax pressure also: from 52 pro to 50,7 pro. Expressed in money, that is about 5 billion euros that we take out of people’s pockets every year less. That is a lot. However, I must admit that 5 billion is still 2 billion less than the 7 billion of the previous government’s tax law. Therefore, there are still 2 billion to go to completely reverse it.

However, I think that we can be proud that Belgium today is also at the forefront in a number of very positive lists. For example, I think of the list published by the OECD, the list of countries where the tax burden has dropped the most. In the past few years, nobody had thought that Belgium would ever be in this area. Well, during this legislature it is so far; Belgium is one of the leading drivers among the countries where the tax pressure has dropped the most. Declining government seizures, decreasing spending and lower tax pressure have improved our nominal balance of joint government from 3.1 percent to 1.1 percent. That is an improvement of 2 percent. This is almost twice as much as in the previous coalition. Two-thirds of the ride has been completed, two-thirds of the exercise has been done or will be done at the end of next year. If we look at our level alone, the federal government alone, then our nominal deficit is barely 0.5 percent. That is almost a balance.

In summary, I believe that we can say that this government has really fixed the spending.

It was not savings that lead to more spending but savings that effectively lead to less spending. We did so by using two-thirds of the savings to close the budget gap and effectively return one-third to the people and get less money out of their pockets. Less government, less taxes, a path that the N-VA, as a participant in this coalition, is ⁇ proud of. That is the power of change for us.

What this government may be proud of more than on its budgetary trajectory are the structural reforms on pensions and on justice, but most of all on competitiveness. It has already been mentioned in the various demonstrations of the latter, among others by colleague Van Rompuy. He described the situation. For an open economy, for a small country like Belgium, competitiveness is extremely important in order to increase exports and import wealth. Therefore, the need to restore competitiveness at the beginning of this legislature existed more than ever before and we have taken this element very seriously.

The government agreement already had a very strong gap in competitiveness, but that has been gradually strengthened in this legislature. The second phase of the tax shift has already been discussed. The second phase of the tax shift, in addition to the first phase agreed in the government agreement, results in a total shift of 8 billion euros.

Reducing the burden on labor, that is also such a phrase that has been spoken by each party over the past decades, but our coalition does. Employers can therefore create jobs and workers retain more. Those who switched from a benefit system to performing a job, who then get out of bed in the morning, bring their children to a nursery and then start working at the lowest wages, will retain 150 euros more per month. That, colleagues, is a social policy like never before.

The second issue is competitiveness.

This was not stated in the government agreement, but this coalition may be proud of the corporate tax reform. In terms of the impact on our economy, I think the corporate tax reform will be the most important measure. Although this was not stated in the government agreement, I am ⁇ proud that we have progressively come to implement this reform effectively.

It is no news if I tell you that with the face value of 33.99 percent tax rate in corporate tax, we were the most unattractive player in Europe. Even worldwide, we were at the highest rates. This also applies to the effective rate. Previous governments, including socialists and the Greens, created numerous deduction points — some speak of backdoors — to mitigate the high tax rate a little, but the effective rates also belong to the absolute world top. Such things are absolutely deadly for those who want to attract investment, for the purpose of growth and export.

Should I repeat that this situation was not only nefast for attracting foreign investment, even though large multinational companies could still benefit from some of those deductions, but above all also nefast for our own SMEs? After all, our SMEs do not have an army of lawyers and lawyers to thoroughly exploit all roads, making the high rate of 33.99 percent, which was unaccountable and repressive, ⁇ nefarious for them. We can therefore only be very satisfied that the nominal rate will be reduced in steps: 25 percent for large companies, 20 percent for the first 100 000 euros for SMEs. This is a solid improvement.

I know, we have also debated this in the committee for a long time, there has already been a lot of criticism from the opposition, which cites the report of the Court of Auditors, which says that the reform may not be budget neutral. That can. In such cases, the Court of Auditors and the European Commission indicate that, by the way, it may be that one has some more positive estimates here and there and some more negative.

This government has played safely by establishing a sufficiently large security margin. The National Bank has also stressed that the government has very cautiously estimated the main financing measure, the limitation of the notional interest deduction.

I think we are quite safe when it comes to financing.

It must, of course, also be said: what are the costs of doing nothing? In our neighboring countries, and also a little further, the effective corporate tax has been greatly reduced in recent years and will continue to be greatly reduced. The cost of doing nothing, colleagues, would be a huge disadvantage to our competitiveness. The cost of doing nothing would be unpaid. We cannot finance them in any way.

In the light of the developments in the neighboring countries, I would therefore ask you to follow those countries closely. If the rates are lowered there, we can only follow. As stated by the Court of Auditors and the European Commission, it is also possible that this reform will have a positive effect on tax revenues. I honestly expect that. More than enough has been emphasized that no return effect has been taken into account in the government’s estimates. Of course, we expect them to be here and there.

It is therefore our explicit request that such additional income from revenue effects will not be used to spend more money but that they will be used to lower rates even further. We need that. The alternative is to increase spending, which in this country, which has a government seizure of more than 50 percent, is not an option at all.

I also come back to the savings taxation, another measure that was not sufficiently highlighted, but whose effects we should ⁇ not underestimate.

With the extension of the tax exemption from the moving advance tax on the savings book to 800 euros on dividends, we are in fact fulfilling a bill of the N-VA group from the previous legislature. It is a ⁇ social measure, because today it really democratizes the instruments and means that yield more than the ridiculously low interest on a savings book. They are democratized for the ordinary person and specifically for the small investor.

I see you laughing, colleague Gilkinet, but a tax exemption of 800 euros is not there for the big investor, for the Warren Buffets or Marc Couckes of this world. I have a particular respect for Marc Coucke, but the exemption of 800 euros from dividend income does not concern the millionaire, but the ordinary little man. Those who go up there immediately pay a 30 percent mobile advance tax, on each euro.

Mr. Speaker, I listen to my colleague Mr. Dedecker with great interest. I hear him say things that I find huge! He is pleased that parents who have children in kindergarten will have a little more money to pay for it. I hope that with all the measures of work flexibility, they will arrive in time, before the closure of the nursery, to recover their children, because you do not make a ⁇ benevolent society towards them with all the measures you take and consider.

I hear him say here, for example: “Extraordinary! We will democratize the possibility for citizens to invest in shares."But what percentage of our fellow citizens have in front of them enough money and security of existence to simply consider this choice? Maybe you have to live on another planet!

Effectively, some will be winners in relation to this tax exemption, but you all just reinforce the inequality of the distribution of revenues between our concitoyens. On assure the cohesion of a society and its efficiency economically and safeguard a correct distribution of revenues and wealth. What you do is a flight and before. You will all make more comfortable the life of those who already have the means and increase the proportion of those who can not easily terminate their months and simply respond to their needs the most basic. You think you live on another planet than ours!

Colleague Gilkinet, let me answer your question with a call.

According to reports from the Planning Bureau and the National Bank, under the current coalition, the savings ratio has again increased. People want a little more to put on their savings book. Let me make a call. Do not put everything on the savings book, but invest a bit in other products and in our real economy. That is a call to popular capitalism, to strengthen and anchor our companies. After all, that is what we need.

We have also established this in the past. Our flourishing biotech cluster, which is very strongly anchored in Gent, was only possible thanks to the participation of many small investors and savers. The small investors and savers were willing to take a risk with a fraction of their savings and they invested in those young ⁇ . I think we should definitely continue to encourage this.

No roses without thorns, however. I do not want to put under seats or banks that with savings taxation also includes a value tax and a moving advance tax of 30 percent. In terms of taxes on assets and asset gains, we thus occupy a top position.

No coalition, even with socialists, brought more income from taxes from wealth and wealth gains. Am I proud of that? No, I am absolutely not proud of that, but it is no secret that the coalition is not based on passion and passion. The coalition is one of the parties linked together by a common goal, namely to get the country back on its socio-economic footprints, to put the hands back on the squad and to re-create prosperity.

If these measures are necessary to lower our labour taxes, restore our competitiveness and reform the corporate tax, then we will ⁇ take them. The strengthening of our competitiveness is a fact and it is a result of which we as a coalition can be ⁇ proud.

Our group will therefore fully support the budget.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. It is a budget chosen, accurate and assumed.

This final phase of the 2018 budget discussions is the continuation of constructive discussions conducted in each committee. On behalf of the MR Group, I would like to welcome the quality of the exchanges we have had between all political formations – including the PTB. We do not agree on everything, but at least we confront our views freely.

For more than three years, the government has been reforming our country and recording tangible results. The 2018 budget is thought-out and assigns clear and ambitious goals. It attests to determined choices to create more jobs, increase the purchasing power of workers, encourage entrepreneurship and strengthen the competitiveness of our country.

It also demonstrates the willingness to work for more fiscal and social justice. Our government conducts a forward-looking economic policy through major structural reforms, coupled with a responsible sanitation of public finances. We are preparing for future challenges.

As the National Bank recalled yesterday in a committee, the reforms must allow a reduction of our debt in order to meet the challenge of the aging population and, consequently, to ensure the payment of pensions. For our group, it is necessary to continue this path of ambitious reforms and thus guarantee our model of social protection.

During the meetings, and this was discussed just recently, we received opinions from two independent institutions: the Court of Auditors and the European Commission. The opinion of the Court of Auditors is of primary importance in parliamentary work. Each year, it issues an objective opinion that gives us insight into the draft budget and enables us to participate in constructive debates.

The Court validated some government calculations and assumptions and, as every year, issued reservations on the yield of certain revenues. This is not a surprise. These remarks are recurring and relate to both overestimating and underestimating revenue. Not that the numbers would be wrong, but it is simply not able to validate them technically. The Court is therefore cautious and the difficulty of accurately estimating the yield of new taxes, the modalities of which sometimes still have to be defined, is not an easy exercise.

However, the care made by the government and the Minister of Budget to stop the figures is undoubted, as the most recent figures confirm that, for 2017 for example, revenues will be higher than initial estimates. Therefore, caution is on both sides. This inspired prudence is also in effect in the estimation of expenditure since the Court has pointed out very few insufficiencies of credits. This is a significant improvement that is confirmed from year to year.

Furthermore, in order to remove doubts, our Minister of Budget has responded to the opinion of the Court of Auditors in a completely exhaustive and precise manner in the Finance Committee, which once again testifies to its mastery and confirms the rigour and seriousness of its follow-up.

Finally, the Court of Auditors makes the link between the draft budget and our European obligations, which brings me to the Commission’s opinion. First, despite warning Belgium of a risk of non-compliance with the Stability and Growth Pact, the Commission has confirmed that the 2018 project puts Belgium on the right track. Furthermore, it should be emphasized that the economic situation in our country has evolved more favorably than the Commission estimated last year. For 2017, the Commission has repeatedly revised its growth forecasts, rising from 1.3% to 1.7% in its latest estimates.

These successive upward reviews, confirmed by the Plan Bureau, are reassuring about the approach adopted by the government, which just aimed at anticipating a cumulative 0.2% improvement in growth over the 2017-2018 period.

However, the Commission stressed that our country did not fulfill all its European obligations. We knew it.

In order not to jeopardize the economic recovery, nothing is decreed by a fingerclock, everything is measured and must be subject to intelligent weighting. That is what is done.

The government has thus set the amount of effort to be made at 0.6% of GDP in 2018 to reduce the structural deficit by 0.3% in 2018 and 2019, which represents an effort of 2.6 billion euros, considerable effort! If, by the Commission, it is considered insufficient, it should be mentioned that since 2014, Belgium has recorded one of the best improvements in the structural balance of the euro area. The Commission found that the growth of our primary spending is excessive. Sure, it is very high and it is necessary to better manage spending, but we are convinced that acting too hard would be counterproductive. Besides, as I said in the committee, she believes that the growth of primary spending can follow the increase in revenue but limits our revenue forecasts arbitrarily.

Regarding public debt, the Commission has acknowledged that the situation is improving but it is clear that we must continue to work to reduce our debt. As for the nominal deficit, in 2014, it reached 3.1% of GDP. Today, the SPF Strategy and Support estimates that it will reach 1.2% in 2017. In three years, we will have reduced the nominal deficit by almost two-thirds.

We can conclude, from this Commission opinion, that Belgium could have done more, but that was only possible at the cost of new savings or new taxes. The government has favored the guarantee of public service and the limitation of taxation, an approach that we fully support. We are in favor of budgetary rigour – it is regrettable that Mr. Bogaert has just left – but in no case to austerity. The measures taken must support purchasing power, employment and investment.

The results I have just mentioned are the result of a large number of measures that concrete the action plan of our government. To begin with, in 2018, we will take new important steps in fiscal terms. It is important to note that 2016 was a record year in the fight against tax fraud. Last year, the Special Tax Inspectorate recovered 308 million euros from fraud. This is a historical figure.

In 2016, the Special Tax Inspectorate raised 71 million euros more than the previous year. This is a few tens of millions more than in 2013 and 2014. These results are the result of investments in computer applications and data mining.

In this same perspective, the government has strengthened the Caiman tax and the stock exchange tax to increase its effectiveness. The Government also proposed to introduce an annual tax of 0.15% on securities accounts whose average value of taxable financial instruments is equal to or exceeds 500,000 euros. All the fiscal measures undertaken during this legislature contribute to increasing our revenues and, gradually, to a fairer tax policy for our citizens.

Mr. Piedboeuf, you cite among the measures of tax justice the tax on securities accounts. However, one of the main criticisms made by almost everyone about this tax is that it is discriminatory because some elements of heritage are targeted and others are not. In particular, shares that are on accounts are targeted, as the name suggests, but nominative shares are not. Now, it is known that the biggest fortunes in this country do not have securities accounts but possess nominal shares.

I’m not going to name names of big fortunes, they’re on the journalist Ludwig Verduyn’s website, derijkstebelgen.be. Finally, the richest will escape the tax on securities accounts. Does this really mean tax justice?

Mr. Van Hees, when you do nothing, you rush! When you do something, you also roast.

We have chosen one and we start with that one. With regard to nominal shares, a whole range of indicators suggest that they are mainly devoted to long-term investment in companies. This is a choice we have made.

Thus, you recognize that the greatest fortunes escape this tax. Thank you for this precision.

I said we made a choice. I know you are an admirer of a whole series of great fortunes since you never stop talking about them. I think you are forgetting some people who are close to you. This is not serious.

We made a choice.

I refer you to the communist countries that invest especially in the Mediterranean.

Mr. Piedboeuf says that I am close to some great fortunes.

I want him to tell me who it is. The accusation is probably unfounded. There are no such accusations without having any arguments.

I am not throwing the names of the people in the past.

With regard to the tax shift, in 2018 and 2019, we will continue its implementation with the execution of phases 2 and 3. In 2018, €2.1 billion will be invested and, in the following year, €1.9 billion will be invested to increase the competitiveness of enterprises and purchasing power. Through this double support, we will continue to ensure more social justice and reward work more and more.

In the same spirit, it was necessary to reduce the pressure on work in order to further stimulate employment. Social contributions will therefore be reduced in 2018, from 33% to 25%.

Today we are getting results. The growth of companies continues to strengthen. More than 90,000 companies were created in 2015, more than 100,000 in 2016, and the number of self-employed now exceeds one million.

In order to promote our competitiveness, we also put on the agenda the corporate tax reform. After the tax shift, we are implementing a second major tax reform.

The Governor of the National Bank again confirmed, yesterday, the absolute necessity of this reform. The corporate tax rate will be reduced from 33% to 25% by 2020. In Belgium, a small open economy – it was recalled yesterday – this historic reform is a necessary action, especially since, given the international trends in corporate tax, it is absolutely necessary to follow the movement.

Currently, the Belgian corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the European Union and OECD. It was imperative to send a strong signal!

Particular attention is paid to our SMEs as they will benefit from a reduced rate of 20 % from 2018. As part of this reform, consolidation will also be implemented. The cost of the statu quo would be enormous! Without intervention, we risk losing competitiveness, loss of employment and investment. State revenues would be pressured, directly, through corporate tax, but also indirectly through other sources of income. As part of this budgetary work, almost entirely confirmed by the National Bank, it should be insisted that the effects of return, as my colleague Mr. Peter Dedecker said, have not been taken into account in the budget, while we know that these will be largely positive for our economy.

We do not stop here in tax matters and we can still mention many other measures: increase of the deduction for investment from 8% to 20%, benefit premium for workers, activation of savings, introduction of a ceiling level of savings-pension, extension of flexi-jobs, harmonisation and extension of fixed professional fees or even reduction of charges in the construction sector. All these measures are a real support for our economy.

The 2018 budget, however, does not stop the major security challenges. Security remains one of the top priorities of our government. In the case of police, we welcome the continuity of the policy, as well as the adaptation and innovation processes underway.

Important steps will continue to be taken to enhance the effectiveness of our integrated police. Following recent riots in Brussels, the government has strongly condemned the unacceptable violence committed against police officers. We would like to remind them of our support and stress the will expressed in his note by the Minister of the Interior to continue his efforts to combat these intolerable acts.

In order to continue the fight against terrorism, new measures have been added at the limited Council of Ministers theme "Security" last May. Progress continues and we will continue on this path in 2018, with the aim of strengthening our tools, improving what can or should be, while keeping in mind the balance between freedom and security.

Since the establishment of this government, the asylum and migration policy responds to clear rules of human but firm policy. A host country that fulfils its international obligations, but where abuses are no longer tolerated. We must be welcoming with the weak, uncompromising with those who abuse our hospitality or who do not share our values.

This is the case with hate preachers. The general policy note corresponds to this philosophy. First, there is a human aspect in the reception reserved for war-affected refugees – thousands of people are welcomed each year – with an unwavering collaboration with the European Union and with UNHCR on the relocation project. There is also a firm side that translates into the willingness to repatriate illegal offenders.

This policy will continue in 2018: knowledge of the values for first arrivals, emphasis on integration efforts, enhanced return, better management of the asylum procedure and accelerated procedures for categories of asylum seekers. Additionally, a specific reception will be established for groups of asylum seekers who are vulnerable or with special needs.

We will also continue our voluntary policy in favour of European harmonisation of asylum and against illegal immigration. Being human means applying clear, readable rules and quick procedures. This year, special attention will be paid to student migration and economic migration with the transposition of all employment-related directives.

It has been ten years since the crisis has hit hard our economy, our ⁇ , but also our fellow citizens at all levels. The state has had to take its responsibilities to ensure the survival of companies but above all to ensure the sustainability of our social security model, guarantor of the principle of solidarity between generations.

In the fight against poverty, efforts still need to be made. We are aware of this. However, progress can be highlighted. The latest SILC study at European level proves this. The risk of falling into poverty has decreased since 2014. Two factors mainly explain this figure: the significant revaluation of allocations and the creation of jobs.

Overall, ⁇ 1,400,000 people have seen their benefits increase (pension, unemployment benefits, social integration income or GRAPA). These increases in the past three years undoubtedly bring greater purchasing power to the beneficiaries.

With regard to the situation of single-parent families, exceptional measures should be taken because for these families, often women with children, the risk of poverty is far too high.

Among the elderly, the risk of poverty has decreased but various efforts have been made by the government, both as part of the welfare envelope and as part of the additional budgetary resources released to increase the minimum pension for a full career and thus improve the purchasing power of our pensioners. It should also be remembered that the minimum pension for isolated persons has, as promised, exceeded the poverty threshold, which is the least of things.

I would like to extend my appreciation to the work of our Minister of Pension. In addition to the bill on the establishment of a mixed pension, he continues to advance, always advocating social consultation. In the coming months, therefore, we should see coming the long-awaited projects that concern the point pension, the partial pension, the taking into account the penalty, but also – and this is related – the abolition of the preferential multiples or the abolition of special schemes. Justice must not only be fiscal, it must also exist in this matter. The ultimate goal is to create employment to bring as many people back into the professional circuit as the employment remains above all the best defense against poverty and social exclusion.

In terms of healthcare, the 2018 budget is in a more favorable context than last year. It was widely approved at the beginning of October by the INAMI General Council. It is an agreement that comes after a long work of the health insurance stakeholders, who submitted a budget proposal to the Insurance Committee with a very positive vote. The government followed the Insurance Committee, which established a realistic budgetary framework where everyone contributes equally to the effort to consent. Healthcare expenditure provided within and outside the INAMI budget objective increased in 2018 by EUR 813,7 million compared to 2017. The group is delighted.

In the important area of Justice, the budget increases by 3% despite linear savings. EUR 1 956 000 000 is available in 2018. This is more than in 2014, when the real budget was EUR 1 759 000 000.

A structural budgetary solution has been found for financing the medical care of interned persons. They will now be financed in the same way as those intended for any person dependent on the general health insurance scheme. All reimbursable expenses in regular health care will now also be for interned persons and will be covered by INAMI. The SPF Justice will now only pay the moderator ticket for interned persons.

In this case, it is a structural solution to a recurring financing problem.

Furthermore, we can congratulate ourselves that the national defense budget remains stable until the end of the legislature. This reflects a government willingness to comply with the 2016-2030 Strategic Vision and to enforce the Military Programming Act.

As the prime minister recalled last Thursday, Belgium wants to invest more in a European Defence within NATO. This is an essential prerequisite if we want to strengthen our influence in international cases. The European choices we make in this regard are consistent with our ambition to give Europe more weight and a real mediation power on the international stage.

Mr. Piedboeuf, what is the budget programming in terms of defence?

Mr. Laouej, you will know this soon, since we will have the thematic discussions.

Yes, but that is not right, because you serve us a kind of catechism.

You will soon know what we think about the defence budget.

There is nothing strictly, Mr. Piedboeuf. If you had not talked about it, I would not have questioned you. I have not even discussed this issue in the forum. There is strictly nothing – and you boast of it, after all! There are limits. It is not serious!

We have an annual budget line until 2030.

There is nothing!

Mr. Speaker, since we discussed this during a meeting of the Committee on Finance and Budget, I recall that I explained line by line the topics discussed.

When it comes to Defense, when you invest in it, and given the SEC rules, the impact in terms of liquidation will be visible from the moment of delivery. Let me take a concrete example. In 2019, on our budget trajectory, they will amount to ⁇ 500 million euros due to the delivery of the A400M which, itself, was decided eighteen years ago.

So you intend a very bad trial by blaming the government for its strategic vision with regard to defence missions and our international commitments, on the grounds that it would not have provided for liquidation appropriations. By definition, this is impossible.

In foreign policy, our trade balance has a positive balance of ⁇ 12 billion euros on a semi-annual basis. This positive balance has even improved over the last two years. This is a crucial point of our economic policy and, for job creation, one of the pillars of our government’s policy. In order to maintain and improve this positive balance, we need to be even more attentive to the international trade negotiations that are ongoing with Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and soon with Britain following Brexit. We have interests to promote but also sectors to protect. We need to show a greater interest in these negotiations and their results so that our SME tissue can, directly or indirectly, benefit from them.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, Mr. Minister, the 2018 budget, we have understood, is an ambitious budget that is in line with the major reforms undertaken by our government. We are convinced that we must be realistic, while acting with determination. The 2018 budget is a fair balance. Budgetary sanitation must be done in a thoughtful manner. The recovery of our economy is necessary, as is the maintenance of our social security. Working together on these two plans will enable sustainable structural efficiency.

Our Group firmly supports all necessary measures for employment, strengthening the purchasing power of workers, consolidating growth, encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit and the competitiveness of our economy, sustaining our social model, establishing tax and social equity. We want to continue to stimulate job creation, to better guarantee solidarity, to strengthen the freedoms of everyone.

It is therefore with enthusiasm and conviction that the MR group will support this draft budget 2018.

In the meantime, a small service communication.

I intend to continue working until about 13:00. Then we suspend for an hour so that we can eat decently. We will then resume the meeting around 14:00, 14.15.

Mrs. Minister, Mr. Minister, colleagues, Mr. Laaouej, I loved my maiden speech on the budget in 1986 on this tribune. Wilfried Martens was then Prime Minister, Jean Gol Deputy Prime Minister and Guy Verhofstadt Minister of Budget. Kristof Calvo had not yet been born, and the N-VA had not yet been born. The only one who was there was Patrick Dewael. On Mrs. Kitir’s chair was Louis Tobback. On the chair of Mr. Laaouej sat Alain van der Biest and on the chair of Laurette Onkelinx sat her father, Gaston Onkelinx. So I’m talking about the year 1986, when I held my maidenspeech here.

I will go back in history to better understand what is happening today.

In 1986, the global government deficit amounted to 11 percent of GDP. Through the St. Annaplan, this deficit was reduced in two years to 7 percent in 1987. Then came the return of the heart and the tax reform of Minister Maystadt with the decumulation and the split, raising the deficit again to 10 percent.

It was the Dehaene government that reduced this deficit in eight years to a deficit of 0.5 percent in 1999 and a primary surplus of 6.5 percent of GDP.

In the subsequent years, the purple years, we had the active welfare state of Frank Vandenbroucke and the tax cuts of Verhofstadt and Reynders. The primary surplus, which was 6.5 percent, was then summed up. There was nothing else in the greenhouse to stop in the Silver Fund. This brought us into the banking crisis without any reserve, which brought the global government deficit in Belgium again to 7 percent.

It is the merit of the governments-Leterme and -Di Rupo that the deficit was halved and reduced to 3.2 percent in 2014.

Mr. Van Rompuy, you are going into history.

This is the table of the Belgian state debt. In 1989, the Socialists returned to power, accounting for about 120% of GDP. In 2007, that was down to 80 percent of GDP and this among the Socialists. In other words, at the time when, unfortunately, the financial crisis occurred – we had little to do with it as socialists, which was the merit of the big capital’s greed – our figures were under control, just with the intention of being able to finance the future costs of aging.

So let us not tell us that it was all trouble: what had to happen, then happened. Today we are far from those 80 percent when we left the government. The rise in government spending has much to do with the financial crisis. We all agreed that people’s savings should be saved, and you will not criticize me. However, don’t get rid of the message that then everything was bad. At that time, we were working on a budget with the reduction of the state debt that we can only dream of today.

Mr. Vanvelthoven, I do not criticize political parties, because we have always been there.

I have only described the history and said that if the government debt rose again in 2007 that indeed has to do with the banking crisis, causing the deficit to rise again to 7 to 8 percent due to external circumstances.

I just wanted to say that it is the merit of the government-Leterme and also of the government-Di Rupo that the deficit of 7 to 8 percent has halved to 3.2 percent in 2014.

It is also the merit of the government-Michel that this deficit has again been halved. I am positive. The deficits have now halved from 3.2% to 1.4%, which is in line with what has happened in recent years.

2016 was a budgetarily lost year, but in 2017 we note a significant decrease in the deficit by more than 1 percent nominally and 0.8 percent structurally and we have a primary surplus of almost 1 percent for the first time in years.

For 2018, I will immediately return to that, a slight reduction of the deficit by 0.3 percent is predicted, but according to the explanation, the government deficit will again rise to almost 1.5 percent in 2019 due to an insufficiently funded tax shift and the increase in primary spending.

When I stood here, the government deficit was 11 percent of GDP. We once had 14 percent. In comparison, 1.5 percent is ten times less, but it still means an increase in debt of 5 to 6 billion.

I draw two lessons from it.

First, tax reductions, such as in the late 1980s and early 1990s, should be budgetally neutral and should be financed either by internal shifts within the fiscal system or by additional savings. We should not rely only on returns.

Second, budget balances and primary surpluses are and remain necessary in order to reduce our high government debt and save us from the budgetary cost of new interest rates and the cost of aging.

I continue to advocate for a balanced budget.

Mr. President, Mr. Van Rompuy, what I understand from your speech is that you consider that it is necessary to return to balance as soon as possible. You point out, regretfully, the fact that the tax shift was not financed. Probably, you confirm the figures of the National Bank, which considers that the tax shift is not financed in the amount of 4.7 billion euros.

So what do you think the government should do to precisely solve this problem of non-financing the tax shift? Do you think like the government on the effects return? Obviously, these are not there after more than three years? So what solutions do you recommend? What advice do you give to remove the definition of the tax shift which, as you say, itself negatively impacts the evolution of the nominal balance, but also of the structural balance? What do you specifically propose to the government?

Mr. Speaker, in the course of my speech, I will surely return to this.

Mrs. Kitir, of course I advocate for a budgetary balance, but at the same time I note that very few politicians, including those from the opposition, still advocate for a budgetary balance. The same applies to business circles and to trade unions. Even professors I know well, such as the gentlemen De Grauwe and Moesen, partially relieve the budget discipline. They don’t want to save anymore sinon on va casser la croissance. Growth would be stopped.

However, as I noted earlier, economic growth is not determined by the degree of public consumption, but by exports, by investments and by private consumption. Again, not by public consumption. It is wrong to assume that savings of 0.5 percent of GDP in the public sector would destroy our economy. On the contrary, the Netherlands proves that despite heavy savings, economic growth is higher there than here.

Therefore, the ambition of budgetary balance should not be abandoned. I will return to it later. After all, today’s budget deficits are the tax increases and the savings of tomorrow. This should not be weakened.

Mr Van Rompuy, Mr Calvo asks for the word.

Mr. Van Rompuy, you know that my group and I are nothing but budget-balanced fetishists. I am very transparent about this.

The question is only whether, if a deficit is booked, it is booked to invest and prepare society and the economy for the future or because the Minister of Finance has his homework not completely in order and the great fortunes and the fraudsters escape the dance? This is the debate and the disagreement between us and the government.

In the meantime, I also believe that we should push through the narrative of our Prime Minister and of your majority. The government says it will release the budget balance, in order not to hinder growth. However, this is larie and apekool. After all, there is no massive investment and the economy is not stimulated, as should be expected.

There is one secretary of state who is so honest today to admit why the government is releasing the budget balance, especially Theo Francken today in Knack. Theo Francken declares today in Knack — he also seems to be right — that the government loses the balance because it does not win elections. That is the head in Knack today.

The [...]

No, for me, of course, that has nothing to do with winning election, with strategy. Absolutely not. (Hilarity) I am glad that you ask this question so that I can answer them clearly again, colleague Verherstraeten.

I think Mr. Francken gives an honest answer. If this government loses the budget balance, then it has nothing to do with wanting to invest or wanting to stimulate growth because it is not done. It has to do with the fact that one just made the determination, electoral, cold and cold calculus, but before the elections that doesn’t matter. Francken honestly says that by sitting on the cap of the Muslims, one can win the elections, but not with a budget balance. That is the strategy. That is why the N-VA has also released the budget balance.

Mr. Speaker, I leave the populism of Mr. Calvo to his charge.

However, I notice two major themes in the comments I hear here. I would also like to hear the opinion of Mr Van Rompuy.

First, if the opposition constantly says that the tax shift is not financed, then this means that the tax pressure has decreased. For whom has it fallen? For those with the lowest incomes because they are the ones who benefit from the tax shift. People with the lowest income get the most from the tax shift. I hear that the opposition is against it. I would like to ask Mr Van Rompuy if he has the same opinion as the opposition.

Second, Mr. Calvo says that investments do not increase at all, that there is no investment in this country through the policies of this government. Well, there is currently a message from Febelfin on the website of the VRT. The Belgian companies borrowed €145.5 million in September. That is a record amount. Mr Calvo, this amount is invested, jobs are created and our economy is supported. I think this shows that we are on the right path.

Mr. Speaker, the only thing I have heard about the budget in the last period of the opposition, including the green opposition, is the criticism that the budget path does not lead faster to balance and that the budget is not in order. However, it does not provide an alternative.

The opposition also adopts a somewhat dubious and ambiguous attitude. On the one hand, it complains that we are not working on the budget balance and that the debt is not sufficiently reduced. On the other hand, she says that there is not enough investment, that there is not enough investment in growth. It criticizes both policy aspects. How do you combine both? It can’t be, right? We cannot invest on a quick path to fiscal balance and at the same time invest even more in growth and investment, what are expenses? Explain how you want to deal with this.

Mr. Van Rompuy, you said you feel a little lonely when you make this plea in favor of budgetary balance. Some academic backgrounds do not necessarily relate you. Unions are not very favorable.

You will remember that in the committee, I fully supported your statement because effectively, in budgetary matters as in other matters, I find that balance is a central concept. The difficulty we are facing is that the call for balance is not heard either within the government. On several occasions, in committee, we have questioned the government to see when it will regain balance in its multiannual trajectory.

I would like to invite you to ask this question too. It seems to me important that we can have from the government and the majority a trajectory allowing us to say that at that time at least, the call of Mr. Van Rompuy will be heard, the balance will be restored. Will it be in 2019? When when ? To this question, we have received no response and I would like to use your intervention to repeat this request. What is the government’s multiannual path? When is it intended to restore this budget balance of which you emphasize the importance?

I would like to do the analysis of the 2017 budget. In that, the deficit was greatly reduced, nominally, by almost 1 percent, among other things due to the unexpectedly favorable evolution of revenue thanks to the higher employment, namely 100 000 jobs over a two-year period, and the higher corporate profits. Revenue increased globally by 6.1 percent, mainly due to better revenues from corporate advance tax, company advance payments and mobile advance tax. So there was a global increase in revenue, but the criticism, which I have always formulated, is that the yield of a number of capital taxes, such as the Kaimantax, the taxes on the property buffers and the fiscal regularization, countered. This is also the criticism of the Court of Auditors and the European Commission. The government responded with a number of arguments. In any case, the net accounting of the revenue was positive.

In terms of spending, primary spending will decline in the period 2014-2018 from 52 percent of GDP to 49,5 percent in 2018. That is about 10 billion. Expenditures increased annually by 0.3 percent in the period 2014-2018. So the government has conducted a policy, in which, in part, employment and the better economy have generated more revenues. The weakness is that in the tax shift the compensations on the side of capital taxes did not charge what they should have paid. The effect tax is also an element of that, but it will always be a mix of taxes and expenses.

Against the criticism on the socialist side and on the trade union side that the spending reduction has meant social degradation, I propose the increased wealth cover, the increase of the minimum pensions, the 3% increase of the low wages of 1,500 euros, thanks to the new tax shift – which today was confirmed in the personal tax – and the respect of the legal growth standard in the health insurance. Minister De Block is present here and can testify. Even though I am not a member of the competent committee, I note that despite the expenditure increases in recent years, the health insurance with a standard of 1.5 percent is not being demolished. It is a reduced rising rhythm. The budget for pensions is 40 billion and that for health insurance is 30 billion. I remind those who analyzed social security in a certain way that the Court of Auditors concluded in its report on social security that the budget balance in social security is positive, with 208 million euros. In addition, the budgeted spending on social security in 2017 will increase by 2 billion. They are now approaching 100 billion.

Everything is screaming about social degradation, while social spending increased in 2017.

Mr. Laaouej has repeatedly stated that the reduction of the social burden creates a hole in the social security budget. Well, I have to conclude that for 2017 the budget balance is positive. There is no dismantling of our social security. (Protest by Mrs Kitir)

Ms. Kitir, you should rather tell the citizens that 200 000 jobs have been added and that in the province of Limburg, after the difficult period following the closure of Ford Genk, employment is rising sharply, so much so that there is the strongest growth of employment in Flanders and the unemployment rates have declined sharply. By the way, this is not only the merit of the government or of one party, it is also the merit of the people in Limburg.

Let us, Flamingen, be proud of the fact that it is still going well in a number of areas, including in the field of employment. I am really happy to be able to tell young people that they have a future and that there are jobs. This is not just about the current government. I don’t participate in the game “who is responsible for what.” That is thanks to the investments of the entrepreneurs, or our training programs, thanks to our education, thanks to our enormous efforts to attract foreign investment and to create jobs. These are positive things and negative stories are not discussed in Limburg either. The period after the closure of Ford Genk you have experienced on the lookout. But Limburg has risen from its ashes. Let us also say positive things.

In terms of purchasing power, the real available income increased by 2 percent. Purchasing power increases, thanks to the work bonus and the revised tax scales. The labour market is becoming more flexible, and it must also be more flexible. In fact, the opposition about those good developments should be very happy. I have also been in opposition. I know that we cannot be happy, even if we are making progress.

Colleague Van Rompuy, we will welcome any additional job, there is no discussion about it; the more, the better. That Limburg does well has to do with many factors, including the resilience of Limburg. We are ⁇ proud as a province that we have come to the top with efforts from the province, from Flanders, from the federal level and from Europe.

You say you are happy to be able to communicate to young people that they now have a future. From the beginning of your presentation, I have noted that today’s budget deficits are tomorrow’s tax increases and savings. That is the future. Do you also tell the young people that, despite the government’s promise to the younger generation, the government does not keep its promise on budget deficits? Even though you say you are happy for their future, that just mortgages their future.

That is the essence of my presentation.

Budget deficits have been reduced, they have been halved now, at the end of 2017. Efforts will also need to be made in the coming years. The sanitation policy should not be curtailed, as the European Commission also says. As a member of parliament, one can be critical of the government and of what is happening, while one cannot deny that an important path has been taken.

Mr. Dispa, I am not adding a number to that. Had it been said last year that the budget deficit would be reduced by 1 percent, I would not have believed it. We all thought that revenues would fall lower, but thanks to economic growth, they were higher. However, it must remain the ambition to create budgets so that the debt does not continue to rise. Remember that we still have a debt of 460 billion. The debt reduction is 2 percent this year, which is a very good result. In 2018 and 2019 the weather will be a little less. I advocate that the budget targets be counted later, but that dates on stick is something that depends very heavily on economic development. Fortunately, it’s good, so I’m optimistic.

Colleague Van Rompuy, I share your aspiration to a budget balanced and if it can even go to a budget with surplus to work away the historical debt. I believe that this is a testament to very common sense.

Mr. Vanvelthoven, a euro that you do not own today, but which is spent today, will have to be repaid later. That drama occurs with a government debt above 100% created here.

However, it could be solved very easily. Let me give you an example. The pension reform we have carried out is a real pension reform, even though it comes twenty or, according to some, even forty years late. Our pension reform is very different from the Silver Fund, which was an empty box. For example, we could say that all measures will apply to everyone from today. The problem would then be resolved immediately, as those measures would generate a surplus rather than deficits. However, we choose the gradual path, a path without social degradation. Nevertheless, I note that you are constantly raising people to protest against them and to hold to every right possibly acquired. This is why young people are now in trouble.

Mr. Van Rompuy, you tell us that the debt has been reduced and you attribute this reduction to the policy of sanitation of public finances and the gradual, but slower than expected, resorption of the structural deficit. You forget to say that it is also due to the resale of BNP Paribas asset shares.

I think we should be able to recall it. This has been attributed to public debt and the Minister of Finance will not deny it. This is stated in the report of the Court of Auditors. In the forecasts of the Minister of Finance, referring to a goal of 100% of GDP in terms of targets of reduction of public debt, there is also the resale of Belfius, a subject that I did not mention in the tribune. But, Mr. Van Rompuy, we should not tell us stories! The decrease in debt is also due to the fact that you return assets. I think your exhibition should mention it. The nuance serves the convictions better, Mr. Van Rompuy!

You have not yet answered my question. You said you agree with the figures of the National Bank which considers that 4.6 billion (more exactly 4.685 billion) of the tax shift is still not financed. You do not tell us, you, on the tribune, how you intend to finance the measures you advocate since you tell us: "I want to return to budgetary balance, I want to resolve the structural deficit!"

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Laaouej, you apparently do not understand the difference between, on the one hand, selling an asset and thereby effectively reducing the public debt – then it seems to me a matter of sound management – and, on the other hand, on 31 December, holding a pension fund to make the current account knock and thus set up future generations with massive pension charges, simply to make the account knock on the level of operation. If you no longer understand that difference, a serious debate is not possible.

I am not trying to argue. I just say that it is not enough, in the exhibition, to simply say that debt decreases, without explaining how and why it decreases, by simply attributing it to your budget trajectory linked to your ordinary budget operations. It seems to me that, for the clarity of the debate, you must remember that you have resold assets and that you will continue to do so. For the clarity of the debate, you must be able to say it, and you do not do it, as if it did not exist!

The path that must be followed is the path that the government has designated for a piece. On the one hand, we see that as employment increases, income also increases. I think of the corporate advance tax and the corporate profits. On the other hand, this must be compensated.

The tax shift creates a hole in the budget. The problem is that this is partly overcome by the higher employment and the better economy. This was also discussed in the committee. A number of measures – the cash tax, the fiscal regularization, the value tax, the real estate certificate – do not produce enough.

We have given the government the advantage of the doubt. The discussions in the committee are not in the empty space and are not limited to slogans. The Minister of Finance has answered questions regarding the various capital taxes.

Mr. Laaouej, we have saved this legislature considerably in the primary spending of approximately 10 billion euros. This too will need to be continued because reducing budget deficits is not done without savings and with tax cuts. It will always have to be a balance that will also be subject to ideological discussions in the government.

It is the task of Parliament – I am the chairman of the Committee on Finance and Budget – to be very critical of budgets. We need to be very critical about the figures when it comes to tax returns. We need to be very critical about spending reductions.

The European Commission says the same. The European Commission warns for 2018 because the structural deficit could increase by 0.1 percent Minister Wilmès did not agree. According to the government, the structural deficit will decrease by 0.3 percent. Both the Commission and the Court of Auditors say that we must ensure that these new taxes have the expected return. The National Bank says that due to the tax shift there will also be a deterioration of 0.2 to 0.3 percent of the deficit due to the reduction of the personal tax and the social contributions in 2018. On the other hand, this must be compensated with these new taxes. This is the weakness of the budget. This is also the weakness that the European Commission has highlighted. However, the government has given a number of arguments.

We will see next year what the real income will be. That is one of the great difficulties. If one speaks of 50 million more in the kaaimantaks, above the 460 million, we do not know, of course, where those 460 million are in the budget because there is nowhere to find a post for that. But it may be that those revenues exist. That is one of the difficult points. Then there are the real estate buffets, 250 million. We will see what the revenue is. This can only be judged in the final result.

Mr. Van Rompuy, Chairman of the Committee on Finance, says he agrees with the findings of the European Commission. It’s a very important point, but we’re talking about half a billion.

Mr. Van Rompuy, you are right, we don’t know how much the Cayman tax returns. Why Why ? Because the government does not give itself the means to have statistics with a separate code. Would you agree to support a proposal that we might formulate to add a separate code that would identify the Caiman tax recipe? If we submit such a text, could you, who regret such opacity, support this request?

I think the Minister has already said a few times that the discussion is not closed. Additional measures have also been taken to tighten the Kaimantaks. The question of whether a separate item in the tax return should be created is worth discussing. This is something we need to look at in the committee. We are also a requesting party. We also believe that foreign accounts escape taxes. Something needs to be done very clearly. There can be no discussion about this. We only need to make sure that it can be technically translated and that we can estimate the yield. That is one of the points we need to work on.

Regarding the Caiman tax, I mean two things.

Sure, one can always discuss such a proposal, but what I want to emphasize is that the problem of the Caiman tax, in terms of the income it generates, is much more complicated than it seems. Because what is seen? Especially that people are removing their constructions simply because they know that the tax authorities can look at it.

It brings money, it is certain and certain! You can never detect the amounts that come from this action on the part of the taxpayers who have constructions today. It is like that!

So we can imagine creating a separate position, but I tell you very clearly that it will never indicate all the budget consequences, all the consequences in terms of revenue that a Caiman tax can generate, given the experience gained in the last two years.

We have repeatedly discussed the fact that this is not a separate code in the committee, including in the Panama Papers committee.

Basically, I would just like to ask you to look at the income from corporate tax as such. If it produces much more today – everyone agrees with it, no one in this hemisphere doubts that – then there is the piece of what one can get through the kaaimantaks. Why is it in it? Because a number of constructions are now being examined. The companies saw that they would be taxed on this and began to make an increased advance payment. Therefore, the advance payments for companies have also increased spectacularly this year. If one follows those figures from month to month, then this should strengthen you in the belief that this tax does not effectively miss its purpose.

Mr. Van Biesen, if corporate tax increases, it is mainly because we have a corporate gift policy that leads to an increase in corporate profits. There must be a link between the growth of profits and the growth of the tax of the latter.

I would also like to draw attention to the remarks made by the Minister of Finance. According to him, even if we had a separate code for the Caiman tax, we could not determine the amount. In other words, even if we had numbers written black on white, we could not determine the amount. On the other hand, the government advances a totally fantastical and exaggerated amount without knowing anything. Furthermore, this amount increases from year to year. The Minister has therefore just demonstrated that the figures indicated for the Caiman tax are ⁇ fantastical.

Mr. Van Hees, you think the companies should lose, the multinational companies should leave our country and the capitalists should be taxed away, so there would be no more money for investments. Your program means the ruin for our economy. Are you coming here to teach us about the budget?

Calculations teach us that implementing your PVDA program costs the budget €50 billion. These are not my calculations, but the calculations of Professor Defeyt from Namen, member of Ecolo. Your program also drives massive companies out of our country. Furthermore, companies should not be allowed to make profits, which would lead to massive business closures. In the public opinion in Wallonia, you clearly get 20 percent. Well, I call on all French-speaking politicians to unleash that mask.

French-speaking colleagues, instead of criticizing us, you would rather criticize Mr. Van Hees’s statements. After all, he misleads the public opinion, but you never respond to it.

No to Mr.

First, there is the general accounting, Mr. Minister of Finance. When you lower the wage mass with the index jump, you decrease the operating charges. When you reduce employer contributions, you reduce operating charges. If you reduce operating charges, you increase the operating profit of companies and, consequently, the taxable profit. So, having a return to the ISOC level, on the contrary, you should say, “This is the return effect.” Simply, it is that obviously there is a transfer of certain economic agents to other economic agents. This is what you are accused of. You brokered recently the fact that Mr. Van Hees recalls some general accounting rules. These are facts.

Mr. Van Biesen tells us, which is nevertheless incredible: “You should be happy. The income from corporate tax is increasing. This proves that the Caiman tax works. This is due to the Caiman tax.”

The [...]

Mr. Van Biesen, yes, you are a great accounting expert, a great tax expert. You have made a specific budget line for the Caiman Tax. Specifically speaking! 460 million and you have now added 50 million. That is 510 million specific budget line! The Court itself tells us: "I am not able to check this budget line because there is no separate code." So it is drowned in other direct tax revenue: corporate tax, furniture pre-account, what do I know?

We just ask you to allow us to exercise our parliamentary and budgetary control and to check whether what you have programmed as revenue is valid. We are talking about half a billion. If we were to talk about ten million, I would not propose a separate code. We are talking about half a billion. For a separate code, a royal decree is sufficient. This is a decision that can be made within 24 hours.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to briefly respond to some of the things that are said here. I can no longer out of it.

I hear colleague Van Biesen here say that we should look at the income from the corporate tax to know that the chaimantax pays. The Kaimantaks is not for companies, but is only included in the personal tax. In this way, the Kaimantaks provide a revenue. Now don’t tell me that it’s an increase in corporate tax revenue. You understand nothing of it.

I hear colleague Van Rompuy like to say that an additional code is worth a discussion. You have voted against this in the Panama Commission. It is easy to come here afterwards on the tribune to say that you want to discuss this.

I hear the minister say we don’t know it well. I remember the minister at one point screened with a study from the National Bank to say that it would make even more than those 460 million. We have repeatedly asked for that study and have not received them until today.

I wanted to correct that.

Regarding the budgetary technique, apart from the interest – yes or no, no matter – of having a comprehensive view of what the Caiman tax relates, and apart from the fact that there may be a separate line and given the fact that there may be other effects related to the Caiman tax that would not be taken under that word if one should establish a separate line, the Court of Auditors also explained – it is important to say this because it is here to make believing that one takes a half-billion budgetary risk on non-existent revenues – that the 2018 budget indicates an increase of 50 million in view of the new measures taken. The Court of Auditors explained it well to the commission, saying itself that it understood that it was complicated to grasp because it was counterintuitive. When it comes to budgetary techniques, it is based on what has already been done for a year and adds 50 million. So the entire Caiman tax, except for the additional 50 million, is already at the base of the budget trajectory.

Therefore, it should not be made to believe that we are taking a budget risk of half a billion. This is not correct.

Mr Van Rompuy, you go on. You have to finish slowly.

Mr. Speaker, I will not go deeper into this, but I would like to say the following.

From the committee discussion — it is a very good report, thanks to the reporters — we learned two things.

First, the European Commission has a different definition of structural deficit after us. A structural deficit is cleared for employment and revenue according to the conjuncture. The European Commission adopts a different approach, which makes it ⁇ difficult for a parliament like ours to make a judgment on who is right.

Second, on the expenditure standard, the European Commission claims that Belgium is 0.6% above that standard and would need to save 2 billion in order to meet the expenditure standard. We have received an explanation from the European Commission. Of course, this is not purely about primary spending. This includes the discretionary income that can be spent. There are also corrections for the one-offs.

I make the following appeal to the Government and to Mrs. Wilmès.

I would not want to experience the discussion that we have now experienced, namely that the methodology of the Belgian government differs from that of the European Commission. This makes it especially difficult for us to make a judgment on what the primary expenses are. Are the Communities and the Regions and the Social Security included? Are the new discretionary income measures included? This is about technical discussions. I also know that public opinion is not awake from this.

Parliament must, however, watch over Orthodoxy. We must also be careful — I have already pledged — that the budget balance will come. It is about 5 to 6 billion, which is only 1.5 percent more. When I stood here almost thirty years ago, it was 11 percent. Achieving that balance is only step by step. Whoever thinks that one penny draw can get rid of the budget deficit is wrong. This is a Sisyphus work. I would like to warn everyone who makes big promises now in the sight of the elections. It costs 14 billion. Mr. Calvo’s program in the field of wealth guarantee is also ⁇ ly costing 20 billion. The Minister of Finance has announced a reform of the personal tax. He says that this budget will be neutral. I hope that this will be the case. Mr. Laaouej, if you are going to translate your four-day week budgetary...

Mrs. Kitir, John Crombez from your party talks about for free. Free is back in. The Stevaert period is coming back.

I said: we must continue to save in a selective way and for the tax reduction there must be internal compensations. This is one of the weaknesses of this government.

Mrs Kitir, you say it very beautifully: savings on the one hand, income on the other, otherwise you never get a balance. Radical measures and electoral promises that wipe away everything – such as the PS saying that capital and labor should be taxed in the same way and that one should go to a four-day week – are the best way to help our economy completely off soap and ensure that there will never be a budget balance.

Mr. Van Rompuy, I think you should go back to what you have used to us, that is, to a serious and well-founded analysis. This is especially the case on your blog, which I am a very attentive reader, especially when you relay the criticism of the European Commission, when you talk about a high-risk budget, etc. Here, you smoke us a little while talking about each other’s program. For my part, I stick to the facts.

Mr. Minister, I am obliged to deny you about the Court of Auditors and the Caiman Tax.

Here is what can be read on page 49 of the Court’s report, which “constated that no figures are available regarding the current income of the tax (the Caiman tax), that its application remains very complex and that its output is very difficult to estimate.” So stop saying that you have worked on solid foundations, since they are unstable and unknown. This means that even your additional 50 million will eventually depend on nothing.

Yes, Mrs. Wilmes, the Caiman tax puts your budget at a risk of half a billion euros. This is in the report, on page 49.

Mr. Van Rompuy, I have listened to you very carefully.

I have the feeling that at some point you said anything because it was good for you. Let me remind you that you are a member of the majority and not of the opposition. You can come here to say anything you want, but then you vote away from everything. That is what you are doing right now.

I hear you say: oh, that PS with its 30-hour week and that sp.a that wants to give everything for free. Now you must explain to me, because I no longer understand, to what extent is this different from these so-called stupid ideas which you are absolutely against? You have agreed in the Summer Agreement that people must now only work four fifths. Calculate how many hours a week is. In addition, people can earn untaxed income. and free. They do not have to pay taxes on it. It is free!

What the PS and the SP proposes, you call stupid. It cannot. How does your policy differ from what we propose?

Mr. Van Rompuy, since you are speaking today for the whole CD&V, and as the news is rushing, I allow myself to interpell you directly, as well as the minister, about the government’s position on nuclear.

There is a new issue, Mr. President. The Prime Minister, after hesitating...

But not at this time of the debate.

You are the president of everyone.

The words of the Prime Minister are dubious. Then a press release came out, which we all had access to. I see that at the same time, the N-VA group in the House communicates officially on Twitter, saying exactly the opposite of the Prime Minister’s statement.

I find that this is a surcharge, since now the N-VA officially and frontally contradicts the official communication of the Prime Minister. What is the position of CD&V? What is the government’s position? Is there still a government despite this simultaneous overpricing in the debates, of which the prime minister is still absent?

Did you get in touch with the Prime Minister?

Mr. Van Rompuy, I look forward to your response for the CD&V. As for the prime minister, will we be able to conduct this discussion here, in the House, and not through a surcharge of press releases between majority parties? This is surreal and irresponsible.

Mrs. Fonck, I can reassure you, we will return to it, but let us follow the line of the debate. There is an interesting exchange of views. It is the minister's turn.

Mr. Laououej, you have summarized my words in an inappropriate way. You have used me to a bit more subtle. (Brouhaha) by

Generally, you are someone subtle, which is not unpleasant to hear. But there is a nuance that you know. I do not express myself on the interest or absence of interest of a differentiated line with all the considerations that may be added to it. I am talking about the budgetary technique, which is to say that, compared to the base already introduced in the budget trajectory, the Caiman tax, on 2018, represents an additional 50 million. When you say that, in the budget trajectory, we are taking a risk of half a billion, it is false! The Court of Auditors clarified this. Or you don’t know the budget techniques. Sorry to me!

I ask the question openly. I am willing to explain it better at another time, but the reality of the budgetary technique requires that we take the basis of 2017, to add the measures taken by the government during the conclave, or another 50 million. This means that with regard to the budget trajectory as a whole, there can be no risk of half a billion. I am sorry to say this, but it is a misunderstanding.

Mrs. Kitir, I can repeat my speech again but I think I have been sufficiently clear and nuanced.

Mr. Calvo, I have also said that I would like to have a special debate about your 20 billion wealth guarantee, about where you want to get those 20 billion.

Mrs Kitir, it is the task of Parliament to look critically at budgets. Well, I have looked critically at a number of issues, including the compensatory capital tax. I have said that this needs to be critically looked at and evaluated and that this is the weak point.

For the rest, we see that the deficit is decreasing. That was under the previous government-Di Rupo so and it is now so. There is still a path of 1.5 percent, 5 to 6 billion. This can only be done by creating primary surpluses. It must be a mix. If the taxes are reduced, it must also be compensated.

For us, there must also be an element of right skill in it. I think that this element is the element that we as a group in this legislature emphasize, ⁇ as the only one within the majority. However, this is our way.

I do not convince you. Mrs. Kitir, I will listen attentively to your alternative. I would like to know how you look at things. However, I am convinced that the path we are moving forward may not be a spectacular path, not a populist path, not a slogan path, but the path of reason that will lead to results.

Just a small word.

I wanted to reassure Mr. Van Rompuy. CD&V is not the only party to defend fairness. We too!

Thank you, Mr Piedboeuf.

I have just learned that the Prime Minister will not be there either today or tomorrow. It does not want to escape its international obligations.

I communicate to you about it.

I suggest that we have a discussion about this after the break, which we will let last for an hour. I do not intend to open the debate on this now. If the Chamber considers it necessary, we can discuss it at 14.15.