Where can Bart De Wever find Belgium’s missing €10 billion?
Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s federal coalition is preparing a new budget round after official projections put the additional structural effort at about €7.7 billion by 2029 and €9.8 billion by 2031.
In 30 seconds
- The Monitoring Committee estimates an extra federal effort of about €7.7 billion by 2029 and €9.8 billion by 2031.
- The projected Entity I deficit rises from €25.7 billion in 2026 to €44.5 billion in 2031 without additional measures.
- Belgium’s total public-debt ratio is projected to reach 122.6% of GDP in 2031.
- No decision to increase company-car taxation had been confirmed on 27 August.
Prime Minister ’s federal government entered the final stretch of its budget preparations in on 27 August with roughly €10 billion still to find by 2031, but without an agreed package of spending cuts or new revenue. The figure is a rounded version of the €9.8 billion additional adjustment identified after the Monitoring Committee’s July update; for the end of the present federal legislature in 2029, the corresponding gap is about €7.7 billion.
The distinction matters. The government has not announced a fresh €10 billion cut, nor has it decided to change the tax treatment of company cars. French-language reports by La Dernière Heure and 7sur7 instead examined the options facing the five-party coalition and presented company-car taxation as one possible source of revenue. Any such move would require agreement among De Wever’s N-VA, the French-speaking liberal MR, the centrist Les Engagés, the Flemish Christian democrats of CD&V and the socialist Vooruit.
The official arithmetic explains why the question has returned so quickly. Belgium’s federal Monitoring Committee, a body of senior civil servants, estimated on 6 July that the deficit of Entity I — the federal state and social security — would rise from €25.7 billion in 2026 to €30.3 billion in 2027 and €44.5 billion in 2031 without further measures. The debt ratio for all Belgian public authorities was projected to climb from 110.7% of gross domestic product in 2026 to 122.6% in 2031.
Those are baseline projections, not a prediction that every euro will necessarily materialise. They incorporate current policy, expected ageing costs, interest charges and economic assumptions, while future reforms could improve the path. Yet they show that the coalition’s earlier budget work has not closed the structural gap. The Federal Planning Bureau separately expects Belgium’s overall public deficit to fall temporarily in 2026 before rising again to 5.7% of GDP in 2029 and 6.3% in 2031 under measures already decided.
De Wever, the first N-VA politician to serve as Belgian prime minister, has consistently framed the adjustment as necessary to protect pensions, social security and Belgium’s credibility with lenders and European institutions. His government agreement describes weak productivity growth, population ageing and rising interest charges as structural pressures. The coalition has already pursued pension and labour-market reforms, tighter follow-up of long-term sickness, savings in public administration and tax shifts designed to raise revenue while encouraging employment.
The new round is harder because many of those measures are already included in the baseline. Finding another €10 billion therefore cannot be achieved simply by relabelling previous decisions. The coalition must choose among deeper expenditure restraint, reductions in tax advantages, additional levies, stronger enforcement, delayed policies or assumptions about higher employment and growth. Each route distributes the burden differently, which is why the negotiation is as political as it is mathematical.
Company cars illustrate the difficulty. Belgium’s federal tax and social-contribution system has long allowed employers to provide cars as part of remuneration, partly compensating for the country’s high taxation of wages. Reform advocates argue that the arrangement narrows the tax base, favours workers whose jobs offer such packages and encourages car use. An OECD review noted that Belgium’s tax advantage for a medium-sized company car was unusually large by international standards. That makes the regime an evident subject for budget scrutiny.
Employers and workers with company-car packages see another side. Abruptly taxing the benefit more heavily could amount to a substantial change in agreed remuneration, increase labour costs or complicate recruitment. Fleet operators are also moving rapidly towards electric vehicles under rules that reduce the deductibility of fossil-fuel cars. PwC Belgium’s 2026 mobility survey found that companies were already dealing with higher fleet costs and regulatory complexity. A reform intended principally to raise revenue could therefore collide with the federal policy of using company fleets to accelerate electrification.
There is also a competence boundary to respect. Taxation of salary benefits, social-security contributions and the federal mobility budget belong principally to the federal level. The Regions — Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels — control important parts of transport policy, road taxation and mobility infrastructure. A federal change to company-car taxation would consequently affect regional traffic and climate objectives without giving the regional governments the decisive vote on the federal tax measure itself.
The political alternatives are sharply contested. De Wever’s coalition argues that spending growth must be controlled and employment expanded because Belgium cannot tax its way out of a persistent deficit. In the Chamber, Socialist Party president and federal MP Paul Magnette has argued that the government is choosing the wrong burden-sharing model; the PS says greater contributions can be sought from capital and large fortunes without taking more from workers. The PTB-PVDA similarly favours heavier taxation of wealthy households and large companies, while rejecting welfare retrenchment.
Inside the majority, the emphasis also differs. N-VA places fiscal consolidation and labour-market activation at the centre. MR is particularly wary of measures it regards as punitive taxation on work or enterprise. Vooruit insists that stronger shoulders must make a fair contribution, while CD&V and Les Engagés must balance deficit reduction against the protection of families and public services. These are not merely differences of presentation: they determine whether the eventual package relies more heavily on expenditure, consumption, assets or employment incentives.
Where this is happening
View on map Brussels →European oversight narrows the room for postponement but does not dictate individual Belgian taxes. Belgium is subject to the ’s excessive-deficit procedure, and its medium-term fiscal plan must follow an agreed path for net expenditure. The EU sets the adjustment framework; the federal government and Belgium’s federated entities remain responsible for deciding how to meet it. Defence spending and the possibility of limited European flexibility add another complication but do not remove the underlying structural deficit.
The immediate test is whether De Wever and Deputy Prime Minister and Budget Minister Vincent Van Peteghem can turn a menu of contentious ideas into a coherent multi-year agreement. Negotiators will have to show not only headline savings but also when measures take effect, which level of government receives the proceeds and whether behavioural responses could reduce the expected yield. Until that work is completed, the €10 billion is a target for negotiation, not a settled bill, and company cars remain a revealing possibility rather than a government decision.
What to do
No immediate tax, benefit or company-car change follows from the €9.8 billion estimate: it is a planning requirement, not an enacted package. Employees with company cars, pensioners, benefit recipients, savers and users of healthcare or federal services should watch the coalition’s coming budget decisions for confirmed measures and effective dates. Employers should not change payroll or fleet policies based only on the current speculation. The key checkpoints are the additional effort targeted for 2029 and 2031, and any formal budget agreement specifying which taxes, spending programmes or employment benefits will change.
Impact
Regional — Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels would experience different effects because employment rates, commuting patterns and reliance on public services differ. However, the central decisions under discussion concern the federal budget; regional governments are not responsible for setting the federal taxation of company cars.
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Voices & reactions
What the main actors are doing
Reported positions, summarised — not direct quotationsDe Wever coalition’s consolidation frame
Prime Minister Bart De Wever and the federal majority argue that structural spending growth, low employment and rising interest costs require durable reforms. Their frame stresses expenditure control, activation and competitiveness, while maintaining that delay would transfer a larger debt burden to future taxpayers.
PS and PTB-PVDA redistribution frame
The Socialist Party and PTB-PVDA reject an adjustment centred on welfare restraint or household consumption. PS president Paul Magnette argues that greater revenue can be obtained from capital and large fortunes, while the PTB-PVDA calls for heavier contributions from wealthy households and large companies.
Company-car reform advocates
Economists and mobility reformers who question the company-car regime see a costly and unequal tax preference that reduces revenue and encourages driving. They argue that reform could broaden the tax base if employees receive credible alternatives and changes are phased in.
Employers and company-car beneficiaries
Employers, fleet managers and workers receiving cars as remuneration warn that sudden tax changes could raise labour costs, disrupt salary packages and weaken recruitment. They also point out that company fleets are already bearing much of Belgium’s transition towards electric vehicles.
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