Wallonia has more officeholders, more local public jobs and significantly higher spending per inhabitant than Flanders. At the same time, we have fewer private jobs. Rationalising the provinces, merging municipalities and simplifying our structures means freeing up resources and strengthening our economy. The reform of local authorities is a necessity for efficiency and accountability.
General context
Wallonia faces a dual challenge: a strained budgetary situation and a structural lack of economic dynamism. In this context, the question of how local authorities are organised can no longer be avoided. The figures on public employment, the number of officeholders and local spending reveal an institutional model that is more costly and more fragmented than in the other regions of the country. This reality calls for a reflection on the efficiency of our territorial structure and on how best to use public money.
A structural imbalance between public and private employment
The labour market clearly illustrates this imbalance. In Wallonia, there are 21 private sector jobs per 100 inhabitants, compared with 29 in Flanders, meaning around 280,000 fewer private jobs. Conversely, Wallonia has 11.1 public sector jobs per 100 inhabitants, compared with 10.6 in Flanders, representing around 18,300 additional public jobs.
In other words, Wallonia partly compensates for the weakness of its private sector with a larger volume of public jobs. This gap represents an estimated cost of €1.1 billion per year. Such a model increases pressure on public finances without generating enough private wealth in parallel.
Significantly higher local spending
This imbalance is reflected in the finances of local authorities. Ordinary expenditure reaches €3,199 per inhabitant in Wallonia, compared with €2,325 in Flanders, a gap of 33%. At regional level, this represents an annual extra cost of €3.2 billion.
The density of local public jobs is also higher, with 19.5 full-time equivalents per 1,000 inhabitants in Wallonia, compared with 16.1 in Flanders, 21% more.
A proliferation of officeholders and structures
The number of local officeholders confirms this trend. Wallonia has 24.8 officeholders per 10,000 inhabitants, compared with 12.8 in Flanders, 94% more. The region has almost twice as many local political representatives per inhabitant.
This situation is partly explained by significant institutional fragmentation, with 262 municipalities, 202 of which have fewer than 15,000 inhabitants, as well as 262 separate CPAS and an additional political provincial level. More than 75% of Walloon municipalities fall below this threshold, while the average size of a municipality in Wallonia is around 13,600 inhabitants, compared with 21,100 in Flanders.
The abolition of direct elections for provincial councils, which involves the disappearance of around 200 mandates, is in this respect a first lever for simplification. Furthermore, budgetary analyses show that reaching a size of around 15,000 inhabitants would allow an average saving of around €100 per inhabitant, an estimated potential of €136 million at regional level, which argues for serious reflection on municipal mergers.
Modernising to control public spending
The challenge is to preserve the quality of services provided to citizens while rationalising structures to gain efficiency. Reducing the number of officeholders, simplifying the institutional architecture and reaching a critical size for local entities would enable savings per inhabitant, control public spending and redirect resources towards economic development.
In a region marked by a shortage of private jobs and high budgetary pressure, the reform of local authorities appears not as an ideological choice, but as a structural necessity to modernise public action and strengthen the sustainability of Walloon finances.