Flemish parliament reconvenes to discuss National Bank

Peeters was speaking to the finance committee of the Flemish parliament, which had recalled its members early in order to discuss the question; normally, the summer recess ends on 25 September. The minister-president, who is also Flemish minister of the economy, pointed out that the Bank itself continued to predict growth of 1.2% for next year.

“Boldly predicting a recession is in conflict with the official data given out by his institution,” Peeters told committee members. “If the chairman of a quoted company were to give out information that differed from an official publication, I don’t think people would keep quiet about it.”

Open VLD fraction leader Sas Van Rouveroij responded by saying that Peeters was “shooting the piano player when we ought to be paying more attention to the score”. N-VA member Matthias Diependaele took the opportunity to call for more Flemish say in the affairs of the National Bank. “The institution is very federal minded,” he said. “Nevertheless their forecasts are extremely important for the Flemish budget. Such an avoidable U-turn in the economic figures played into the hands of the federal budget planning but makes Flemish policy more difficult and leads to costs for the Flemish taxpayer.”

On that subject, Peeters admitted in an interview in De Standaard last weekend that the time for belt-tightening would continue for a while longer. Although the budget plans for 2012 are on the right track, the budgets for 2013 and 2014 present a new challenge. “Even with unchanged policies, if we were to do nothing new, spending in 2013 would go up by €750 million.”

This is because of the increase in the number of schoolchildren, agreements made in welfare and the plan to catch up with the construction of social housing. “Whether our revenues will also increase depends on the economic conditions,” said Peeters, “and that’s by no means certain.”