Some play out arguments to loosen budget discipline in Belgium. There are however economic and social reasons not to take this risk.

La Belgique paie plus cher son électricité que les pays voisins. Le ministre wallon de l’énergie propose la gratuité en dessous de 500Kwh.

Today, the health care expenditure takes more then 10% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP, or the total wealth of a country expressed in euro) in Belgium. Approximate we can speak of 37 billion expenses for health care, on a GDP of 370 billion euros in 2011.

The textile sector survived its crisis because of a reorientation towards higher valued added segments. This is also the kind of transformation the steel sector needs to go through in the context of a new industrial policy.

Like elsewhere our healthcare system suffers from the financial-economical crisis. In many countries, as in ours there have been fiscal measures to limit the growth of this sector. Such a purely budgetary approach holds a risk that the people who are in need of healthcare do not receive it.

On the optimal size of government, ideological differences are rampant. The challenge is to objectify for all divisions of government both benefits and costs.