Government formation: budget cuts at heart of coalition agreement for Walloon government

Just over a month after the elections, MR and Les Engagés reached an agreement on the new government for the French Community and the Walloon Region. Budget cuts are at the heart of the coalition agreement. The party’s leaders Georges-Louis Bouchez and Maxime Prévot declared at a joint press conference in Namur that they want to achieve a balanced budget in ten years’ time.

"We want to achieve major reforms, this coalition agreement is all about real changes and breaks with the past,” declared Georges-Louis Bouchez, president of the liberals of MR, at the start of the press conference.

Bouchez pointed out that Wallonia's public finances are problematic. The new government's main priority is therefore the budget. MR and the centre-right and socially liberal party Les Engagés want to eliminate the deficit and thus reduce debts. "In ten years, our budget should be balanced," Bouchez said. In five years, at the end of this legislature, the deficit should already be halved.

According to the two parties, budget cuts can mainly be made in the government itself. They want to phase out complicated structures and merge certain parts of the administrations. They also want to have less ministers, 10 instead of 13, and the cabinets should be smaller. In time, they also aim to abolish the provinces, an unnecessary level of policy according to Prévot and Bouchez.

The two parties also have plans to tackle the high unemployment rate of 12.1 per cent in Wallonia, which is almost double that of Flanders. They plan to reform the regional employment agency Forem and want to limit unemployment benefits to two years. This is a federal competence and therefore cannot be introduced by Wallonia alone. The parties will "make preparations" to prepare Wallonia for such a limitation.

The gap in the budget will not be closed with extra taxes for Walloons, the new government guarantees. On the contrary, they will have to pay less taxes. According to Bouchez, this would constitute "the biggest tax cut ever in Wallonia”. The total reduction would amount to €1.5 billion, spread over the next five years. ​

_{Leaders Georges-Louis Bouchez (right) and Maxime Prévot (left) of the parties MR and Les Engagés at a press conference to present the new Walloon government, at the Walloon parliament, in Namur, on 11 July 2024 © BELGA PHOTO LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ}