How Belgium’s Socialists want to plug the EU’s spending gaps
Payday
As the EU debates how to fund its growing spending needs for defence and the green transition, the leader of Belgium’s Socialist party has a simple proposition: Let the wealthy pay for it.
Context: Several EU countries are in breach of the EU’s strict deficit rules, among them Belgium. At the same time, following the war in Ukraine countries are trying to ramp up defence spending, and the EU needs to invest vast sums to reach its climate targets.
“If we want to finance the climate transition, we need money. This money will come from the multinationals and the great fortunes. There really is no other solution,” Paul Magnette told the Financial Times. “I believe this is a demand that is very strong in the European population.”
Magnette called for “a worldwide tax of wealth, ideally, or at least at European level”, pointing out that “we have to invest 2 per cent of GDP per year; 1 per cent private [investments], 1 per cent public.”
Magnette’s Socialist party is part of Belgium’s governing seven-party coalition, and is leading the polls at 24 per cent in the French-speaking region of Wallonia ahead of federal elections in June.
His proposal of a European wealth tax echoes the manifesto of the Socialist group in the European parliament, which will be elected at the same time as Belgium’s new government. Most areas of tax policy are up to member states.
Magnette, who was a minister in several past federal governments, also called for defence spending to be exempt from budget constraints. “We need to take budget commitments on defence out of any budget balance, because they are investments,” he said.
“We have war at the gates of Europe, we have a situation in the Middle East which is extremely worrying . . . We have to be realistic, we will need the defence and that’s it,” Magnette said.
With their lead in Wallonia, the Socialists have a good chance of re-entering a future government. But Belgium’s federal system means that regional parties will have to come together to form a national government.
In Flanders, Belgium’s Flemish-speaking region, the far-right Vlaams Belang is leading polls with almost 27 per cent, followed by the right-wing N-VA.
Prepare for long coalition negotiations come July.