Flanders invests too little in ‘building shift' and climate targets, says Court of Audit

The Flemish government is allocating too few resources for the “building shift”, the plan to preserve open space from construction, and the climate objectives. That concludes the Court of Audit in its analysis of next year's budget.

With the “building shift” plan, Flanders aims to limit additional developments on open spaces to three hectares per day by 2025 and to ultimately reach a complete stop by 2040. “But within the budget of the Flemish Climate Fund, there is no more margin until 2026 to finance the flanking policy for the implementation of the building shift,” stated the Court of Audit. “Even after that, it remains uncertain whether any margin will be freed up within the Flemish Climate Fund for the shift. Without additional funding, the objective will be difficult to achieve.”

The CO2 emission reduction targets imposed on Belgium by Europe will also be difficult to achieve, the Court of Audit warns. “The budget does not provide additional resources to finance additional climate measures needed to achieve the Flemish emission reduction targets, due to insufficient expected revenues for the Flemish Climate Fund after deducting the already decided expenditures,” declared the experts. “This jeopardises the possible strengthening of the Flemish approach to achieve the Flemish greenhouse gas emission reduction target of minus 40 per cent, and the Belgian target of minus 47 per cent, by 2030.”

If Flanders does not reduce sufficiently itself, it will have to buy emission allowances from other European member states, again impacting the budget.

Like the previous government, this coalition is also keeping the construction costs of the Oosterweel Link – the project to complete the Antwerp ring road – out of the budget. This amounts to 801.8 million euros next year. The Court of Audit points out again that there is no permission for this from Europe, which oversees member states' deficits.

Finally, the budget also assumes too favourable economic parameters, but that is a consequence of the fact that those data have been revised downwards since the budget was drawn up. Meanwhile, the Planning Bureau adjusted growth from 1.4 per cent to 1.1 per cent. Expected inflation rose from 2.8 per cent to 3.2 per cent.

^{#FlandersNewsService | The Belgian Court of Audit © BELGA PHOTO BELPRESS}