Why are Brussels City’s political offices growing during a budget squeeze?
Brussels City published staffing figures showing that the offices serving its mayor, aldermen and public-welfare president employ 93.
In 30 seconds
- BRUZZ and Benoît Hellings calculated 93.2 FTEs across the city college and CPAS/OCMW president.
- Mayor Philippe Close has the largest reported office at 14.6 FTEs; Florence Frelinx has 9.75.
- The municipal council approved a points-based staffing statute on 17 February 2025.
- The official 2026 ordinary budget totals €1.213 billion and projects a surplus of €43,062.
published staffing figures on 1 August showing that the political offices serving its governing college and public-welfare president employ 93.2 full-time equivalents, according to calculations by and opposition councillor Benoît Hellings of Ecolo-Groen. The total is substantially higher than in the previous municipal term, even though the city now has one fewer alderman, and it has prompted the opposition to question why political support teams are expanding while the administration is under orders to save.
The largest office belongs to , the Socialist Party mayor of , with 14.6 full-time equivalents, BRUZZ reported. First Alderman Florence Frelinx of the Reformist Movement has 9.75, while the other aldermen generally have teams equivalent to seven or eight full-time employees. , the MR president of the Brussels City Public Centre for Social Welfare, or CPAS/OCMW, had 9.3 full-time equivalents in a February document and may employ up to 13 under the new framework.
Those figures should be read carefully. A full-time equivalent is a measure of working time rather than a headcount: two half-time employees together represent one FTE. The 93.2 figure was calculated by Hellings from information disclosed by the city and reported by BRUZZ; the city has not, in the material reviewed for this article, published a consolidated assessment of the total annual cost compared with the previous system. That missing cost comparison is central because senior and university-level staff carry different salary scales.
The growth follows a staffing statute approved by the municipal council on 17 February 2025, early in the 2024-2030 local legislative cycle. The official council decision replaced rigid limits linked to employees’ grades or qualifications with a points system. Each political office receives a points allocation and can choose a mix of staff grades, provided it stays within that ceiling. The decision said the reform was intended to provide flexibility and remain within the same budget.
Faouzia Hariche, the PS alderman responsible for human resources, has defended the arrangement as a regularisation rather than an enlargement of the permitted staffing framework. As reported by BRUZZ, she previously pointed to an older possibility of employing up to 20 additional subsidised contract workers. From the governing majority’s perspective, the points model therefore brings pre-existing staffing possibilities into a clearer and more adaptable structure instead of simply creating a new layer of political jobs.
Hellings disputes that account. He argues that the subsidised contracts were used only sparingly in political offices and that the new model has enabled a real increase. He had estimated when the statute was debated that staffing could rise from a previous maximum of 82 people to between 97 and 109, depending on how offices spent their points. The 93.2-FTE total does not establish that the upper scenario has been reached, but it supports his broader warning that the reform permits larger teams.
The argument is sharpened by the city’s finances. Brussels City’s official 2026 budget contains €1.213 billion in ordinary expenditure and projects a surplus of only €43,062. The budget report identifies wage indexation, rising pension obligations and weaker or lost funding as continuing pressures. It also says every expense must be scrutinised while essential services and investment capacity are preserved. The city is a major public employer, although the budget’s figure of 8,805 employees includes teaching staff and covers a wider perimeter than the roughly 4,000-person core administration cited in the staffing debate.
Residents encounter that retrenchment in more tangible ways. The municipal council approved the 2026 budget majority against opposition, while BRUZZ reported plans not to replace hundreds of departing municipal employees by 2030. The contemporary-art centre La Centrale closed in February, with the mayor’s spokesperson attributing the decision to the city’s financial position; 15 jobs were lost. The planned closure of the Christian Merveille nursery school also generated a contentious public intervention at the municipal council in January, although the administration linked that proposal to demographic and educational planning as well as financial constraints.
This produces two clearly opposed political frames. Ecolo-Groen sees a question of priorities and institutional credibility: residents are asked to accept fewer public employees or facilities while politically appointed teams become larger. The PS-MR majority’s answer is procedural and managerial: political executives need sufficient support to implement their programme, and the points system offers flexibility while, according to the 2025 council decision, respecting the available budget. Without a published like-for-like cost series, neither the numerical increase nor the claim of budget neutrality alone settles the dispute.
The distinction between political offices and the permanent administration matters in Belgium. Cabinet employees are selected to work directly for elected officeholders and typically prepare files, coordinate policy, manage communications and advise their principal. Career municipal officials, by contrast, are expected to provide continuity and politically neutral administration. Political scientist Dave Sinardet of Vrije Universiteit Brussel told BRUZZ that Belgium’s large-cabinet tradition reflects politicians’ desire for loyal teams and, at times, distrust of administrations shaped under earlier majorities. That observation describes a structural tension, not evidence about any individual appointment.
Where this is happening
View on map Brussels City →Brussels City also has to be distinguished from the Brussels-Capital Region. The city is one of the region’s 19 municipalities and controls municipal services, local institutions and its own personnel. The regional government exercises supervisory authority over municipal budgets, while federal Belgium supplies certain funding connected with Brussels’ role as capital. The city’s 2026 budget, for example, records a special federal grant of €146.5 million under the federal financing law and a regional general grant of €49.3 million. This case concerns municipal political offices; it is separate from the staffing and savings debate surrounding the Brussels regional government.
What follows is likely to be a dispute over evidence as much as principle. Councillors can press the college for the actual payroll cost, the number and grades of employees in each office, use of detached or subsidised personnel, and comparable figures for the previous term. The governing majority will also have to demonstrate during the next budget adjustments that its promise of budget neutrality holds in practice. Until those figures are published in a directly comparable form, the confirmed finding is narrower but still politically potent: the city’s political offices now account for 93.2 full-time equivalents while residents and municipal workers are being asked to absorb visible savings.
What to do
Brussels City residents do not face a newly announced tax, fee or service change solely because of these staffing figures. The practical issue is budget scrutiny: residents, employees and service users can follow council documents and ask elected representatives whether political-office staffing remains within the 17 February 2025 statute and the promised budget-neutral framework. The next useful evidence would be a consolidated, like-for-like payroll comparison covering salaries and related employment costs. Until that is published, the 93.2 FTE figure shows staffing volume but does not establish how much the offices cost compared with previous arrangements.
Impact
Regional — The controversy may influence the wider Brussels debate about administrative fragmentation and political overhead across 19 municipalities, but the reported staffing decision belongs specifically to Brussels City, not to the Brussels-Capital regional government.
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Voices & reactions
What the main actors are doing
Reported positions, summarised — not direct quotationsEcolo-Groen opposition
Benoît Hellings frames the increase as a question of political priorities: the PS-MR majority is allowing larger teams of politically appointed staff while cultural facilities close and departing municipal employees are not systematically replaced. He also disputes that unused subsidised-contract capacity makes the change merely administrative.
PS-MR municipal majority
Human Resources Alderman Faouzia Hariche’s defence is that the points system regularises existing staffing possibilities and gives each office flexibility to choose the grades it needs. The official 2025 decision explicitly says the reform should operate within the same budget, making cost rather than raw headcount the majority’s key test.
Public-administration perspective
VUB political scientist Dave Sinardet places the dispute within Belgium’s reliance on partisan cabinets alongside neutral administrations. Political offices can provide trusted policy capacity, but large teams may also signal institutional distrust and become difficult to justify when governments ask permanent services to save.
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