For this new, hugely important year for Belgium's future, the Mouvement Réformateur brought together around seventy French- and Dutch-speaking journalists at the Royale Belge site in Watermael-Boitsfort. On the agenda? The poor state of our public finances, the result of 50 shades of left-wing policy over far too many years in our regions.
For Georges-Louis Bouchez: "There are two possible approaches. You can adopt the method of saying ‘tomorrow everything's free’ and make as many promises as possible. But there is also another method, which starts from a real situation and explains to people that they may need to make some effort. It's less popular, but we believe it's more useful."
Numerous figures were presented, and they are far from encouraging. As a reminder, with an unchanged trajectory, public debt will reach 160% of GDP in 2024. In 2021, Belgium's public spending stood at 55% of GDP.
The liberal points out that our kingdom is among the six European countries with the lowest employment rate. Finally, the MR President reminds us that our country is among the world champions of taxation. "Those who say we're going to solve the problem through taxation are wrong. We have no room for manoeuvre left unless we go through a reduction."
For the months ahead, the liberals stress the importance of putting the value of work back at the centre of discussions, with a stronger differential between workers and the inactive, the aim of educational excellence, and the importance of maintaining strict state neutrality.