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  • Public Finances: Will Belgium Have Fiscal Maneuvering Room to Overcome Future Challenges?

    Jeudi 5/11/2020
    Koen Algoed
    Koen Algoed

    Since the nineteen seventies, our country has built up a bad reputation with respect to its state of public finances. We didn’t comply with the Maastricht rules nor do and did we comply with both the preventive and the corrective arm of the Stability and Growth pact. On top of that, there are several fiscal headwinds which put an upward pressure on future Belgian public debt. Ageing and climate change are two well-known elephants in the policymakers’ room.

    Hence the fiscal maneuvering room to overcome future challenges seems limited in our country. There are, however, also several areas where the gains from structural reform are relatively high. The paper discusses a non-exhaustive list of some of these fiscal opportunities. Finally, we question our obsolete budgetary processes.

  • De impact van de COVID-19-crisis op de vergrijzingskosten

    Jeudi 1/10/2020
    Johan Van Gompel

    In July, the Study Committee on Ageing published its 19th annual report estimating the budgetary impact of ageing over the long term. More in particular, it concerns a forecast until 2070 of the change in all social expenditure expressed as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). Since the projections made are inevitably based on hypotheses surrounded by (sometimes considerable) uncertainty, this is by no means a prediction. This year, on top of the traditional uncertainty inherent in long-term forecasts, there is an additional uncertainty regarding the evolution and socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic. This short article summarises the hypotheses of these consequences and shows the extent to which they have an impact on the estimated costs of ageing.