On 8 April, the Walloon Minister-President, Adrien Dolimont, set the course for Wallonia: to become an industrial engine of Europe.
That means: abundant and affordable base energy, an end to the most absurd European constraints, massive investments in energy infrastructure and strategic industries, attracting talent and servers here, in order to reach a 70% employment rate in Wallonia.
For the MR, the whole of Wallonia must get moving again.
Land, energy, jobs: everything must converge so our region becomes central to Europe again.
Reindustrialisation: our Walloon bet
a. The reality we accept
European industry has collapsed: it accounted for 20% of the Union's GDP in 1990, and only 14.3% today. Energy-intensive sectors have lost 20% of their output since 2019. Energy prices for industry jumped by 66% between 2021 and 2025.
Europe imports its solar panels, batteries and strategic steel. The bill reached 427 billion euros in 2024.
Meanwhile, Wallonia was looking elsewhere. Plans were piled up, structures multiplied.
The result: endless procedures, administrative duplication, stalled projects. Up to ten studies and ten bodies consulted for a single project. Years lost in the corridors.
Examples: brownfield sites requiring ten years of procedures for 163 days of work, business parks taking a decade to materialise, investors going elsewhere.
b. Our strategy
The Government has chosen concentration. Not scattered localism, but leverage. Three pillars: abundant and affordable energy, industrial strength in strategic sectors (high-value steel, defence, digital), and mastery of data and industrial AI.
Concretely: 1,500 hectares remobilised over the legislature, prioritising already developed brownfield sites and sites quickly connectable to energy. 2.5 billion euros via Wallonie Entreprendre to support concrete projects: FN Herstal, Safran in Welkenraedt, Sonaca.
A new Research decree after 18 years of inertia: 247 million euros invested per year, that's 1.2 billion in value created, 2,800 full-time jobs maintained, 8,500 jobs created.
c. When they attack over “social destruction” and “all for industry”
A region without industry is a region without stable jobs, without tax revenue, without the capacity to fund its social model. The Walloon social system is running out of steam precisely because it no longer has enough contributors. Our goal is clear: a 70% employment rate in Wallonia. It is ambitious, but not out of reach. But that won't happen by handing out cheques and multiplying support structures that run idle; we'll do it by creating wealth on our territory, concentrating our efforts on sectors where we have a comparative advantage, not by being average at everything.
We have a strong defence industry, which accounts for most of the sector's revenue and jobs in Belgium. We won't apologise for using it as a lever for sovereignty and skilled jobs.
Energy: moving beyond empty rhetoric
a. The reality they refuse to see
Belgium consumed 80 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2025. That will be 110 in 2030, 160 in 2040, 180 in 2050.
Today, more than 75% of our supply still relies on oil and gas. The war in the Strait of Hormuz reminds us every day, at the pump, of our vulnerability. When fuel prices soar, it's Walloon households' budgets that tighten, it's economic activity that slows.
For years, we believed geopolitics had evaporated, that resources would always remain accessible, that we would shift the energy paradigm within thirty years without cost or conflict. We were naive.
b. Our approach
The Government is betting on diversifying sources, planning networks, and investing in production and transport infrastructure with a long-term vision, geared to our future needs.
The Hainaut Loop is not a technical detail: it's a choice about capacity, attractiveness, jobs. If we want to reindustrialise, we cannot accept electrification or investment projects going elsewhere for lack of sufficient grid capacity.
We are developing a CO₂ and hydrogen backbone to allow our industries to decarbonise without closing, to transform their processes without laying off workers.
The energy sector already accounts for 17,000 direct and indirect jobs in Wallonia. The transition could generate 15,000 more.
We are exploring every avenue: white hydrogen, gas storage capacity, underground storage of captured CO₂, long-term contracts. We reject the hypocrisy of wanting to decarbonise here in Europe without caring where the energy we consume comes from.
c. When they attack over “all-in on fossil fuels” or “abandoning the climate”
Lies. We are giving up nothing, but we reject ideology. The European legislation ETS 2, RED 3, EPB 4 must come into force by 2030.
They are tools to serve greenhouse gas reduction, not ends in themselves. If we stay on the current trajectory, diesel will default to 2 euros a litre in 2030. What we now call an energy crisis will have become the norm.
European legislation can be revised, postponed, phased in, without abandoning the climate objective. Carbon pricing is useful over the long term, but applied too fast, too hard, it chokes economic actors and penalises citizens who work, run businesses, and travel. Leading the transition without penalising those who work: that is responsibility.
Employment: revaluing work
a. The reality they distort
Yes, the number of jobseekers is rising in the statistics. But they fail to mention that a change in methodology now keeps certain people in the figures longer. And above all, they carefully avoid saying that, at the same time, the employment rate is rising and thousands of Walloons are finding work again.
Walloon companies are announcing at least 88,000 hires for 2026, more than half of them permanent contracts. One in two jobs will be offered by a small business. The problem is not a lack of vacancies, it's the mismatch between supply and demand, and a support system that is running out of steam.
When barely a third of 5,000 people summoned actually show up, that is neither inevitable nor a minor detail. It is a signal that must be corrected.
b. Our break with the past
We are making the path into employment the heart of our policy. Pierre-Yves Jeholet is implementing a demanding and clear framework: summonses must be respected, support must be real, everyone must know what they must do and what they can expect.
We are reforming integration, hiring incentives, training. Not out of love for organisational charts, but to feed our three industrial pillars, because the shortage sectors are precisely those our strategy needs: construction, industry, digital, care.
The Forem's business plan is transforming support: more dynamic monitoring, a single file, training offer aligned with company needs. The reform of the APE scheme ends abuses to become lasting, structured support. The new Job+ incentive simplifies and targets hiring support on those furthest from the labour market, ending windfall effects.
c. When they attack over “hunting the unemployed”
Revaluing work does not mean stigmatising those who are looking. It means giving them the means to find work again, quickly and lastingly. It means refusing to let thousands of vacancies remain unfilled while thousands of people remain without prospects.
Our project is not to manage unemployment as an inevitability. Because a region that does not create jobs is a region that is falling behind.
Governance: finally deciding
a. The reality they'd rather ignore
When Adrien Dolimont's Government took the reins, we realised the PS had never set up a monitoring system from one legislature to the next, no tool bringing together major projects, no dashboard, not even an inventory of all existing plans. It was like taking over a factory with machines, workers, stock, but no production plan, no schedule, no measuring instruments.
b. Our method
Three words: measure, prioritise, decide.
Measure: we have involved the IWEPS and the High Strategic Council to reorganise the DPR into clearly identified and monitored strategic and operational objectives. We track project progress, cabinet by cabinet, administration by administration, with no blind spots.
Prioritise: we focus effort on a few major axes. We prefer leverage over scattering.
Decide: for major projects, the permit will be on the Government's table. The aim is not to bypass environmental requirements, but to eliminate duplication and mazes. The standard remains the same, the decision-making level changes.
We are simplifying administration: digitising procedures, reducing delays, improving file quality. The simplification shock already amounts to several hundred concrete measures already implemented.
We are rationalising structures: merging Walloon ports, creating a Walloon Housing Agency, simplifying the socio-professional integration landscape. Each reform follows the same idea: bringing land, energy and jobs together on the same course.
c. When they attack over “dismantling the provinces” or “centralisation”
The provinces' missions are being thoroughly reviewed. Those that should return to the Region, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation or the municipalities will be transferred there, with the corresponding resources and jobs. Three guarantees: preserving competences and staff, no additional taxes for citizens, no financial loss for municipalities.
We have neither principled hostility nor any particular attachment to all these structures. What matters is that they genuinely serve the public. A State that wants to keep everything reforms nothing. A State that accepts saying what it will do, and what it will no longer do, always succeeds.
Budgetary discipline: breaking the spiral
a. The situation they created
Wallonia carries an interest burden of around 700 million euros a year. That is twice what Wallonia invests each year in maintaining and modernising its road network. A growing share of our budget goes to paying for the past rather than preparing for the future.
Projections made on a constant-policy basis, even before this government was formed, already pointed to a very significant increase in direct debt by 2029. Decisions taken during the previous legislature, particularly for the recovery plan that is one in name only, committed considerable sums without delivering the promised results.
b. Our course
In July 2024, we set a target: returning to budgetary balance by 2029. Budgetary discipline is, for us, a condition. A condition to break the risk of a snowball effect, where debt mechanically generates ever more debt. A condition to free up the margins needed to invest in our three pillars.
Concretely: structural savings, spending reforms, rationalisation of structures, a budgetary trajectory providing for a sharper reduction in the deficit between 2027 and 2029 than at the start of the legislature.
When certain tax measures had greater side effects than expected, we did not bury our heads in the sand. We recalculated, readjusted, corrected. Recognising a mistake and correcting it quickly is a condition of credibility.
c. When they attack over “austerity” or “gifts to the rich”
Faced with the state of Walloon finances, two attitudes were possible: one that gradually gets used to debt and treats it as inevitable, and one that reverses the trend to regain room for manoeuvre. We chose the latter.
On the reduction of registration fees to 3%, contrary to the figures put forward by the opposition: this is not a gift to the rich.
This structural reform of the property market restores purchasing power to Walloons who want to become homeowners, revives the housing market, and allows thousands of Walloons to finally become homeowners without being financially crippled the moment they sign at the notary's, with a rate of 12.5%.
Conclusion
One thing is clear: our region lacks neither strengths nor talent, but it no longer has the luxury of hesitation or scattergun approaches.
By pursuing a strategy of industrial specialisation, securing abundant and competitive baseload energy, and anchoring brains, servers and defence industries here at home, we choose to become once again a territory that creates value rather than one that endures it.
This path requires difficult decisions: simplifying procedures, streamlining structures, putting the permitting of major projects back on the Government's table, breaking with the logic of spending without impact, and staying the course towards a balanced budget by 2029.
It also means revaluing work, demanding more from employment support programmes, and rejecting the illusions that keep unemployment alive as an inevitability, while tens of thousands of jobs remain vacant.
The MR and the Government are making responsible political decisions. It is not about playing on fears or hiding behind statistics, but about doing every day what needs to be done so that land, energy and employment converge towards a single goal: putting the whole of Wallonia back in motion and making it, sustainably, an engine of Europe.