MR prepares for a long budget battle, drawing a red line at VAT

Georges-Louis Bouchez is warning Belgium’s governing coalition to prepare for another difficult budget battle. Speaking on Sunday to hundreds of MR activists and party figures in Braine-l’Alleud, he said the talks could once again become a drawn-out ordeal if each partner arrives with its own symbolic demands.

“If everyone comes back with their little symbols, we are heading in the same direction as last year,” the MR president said. His message recalls the protracted negotiations endured by the five Arizona coalition partners during the previous budget exercise.

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If everyone comes back with their little symbols, we are heading in the same direction as last year.

For MR, the central issue is taxation. The party considers any increase in VAT or additional tax measures unacceptable, and Bouchez insisted that the state must “reduce its lifestyle.” The savings, he argued, should come from public spending while economic growth remains the priority.

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reduce its lifestyle

The government has set itself the goal of finding 10 billion euros by 2029, an effort it wanted to define before the summer. Bouchez said MR would submit a growth plan to the government in the coming days. He and the party’s ministers did not disclose its specific measures, but he said it included a quantified path to between 16 billion and 17 billion euros in savings across all levels of government, without raising a single tax.

The proposed savings would be achieved over different time horizons and would not necessarily reduce the deficit immediately. Bouchez said that timing should not be decisive because financial markets need reassurance. “Our savings will take a little longer than a tax,” he said, “but that is not fundamentally a problem.” The fiscal strategy is set to place MR under renewed pressure as the federal budget talks begin.

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Our savings will take a little longer than a tax, but that is not fundamentally a problem.