Peeters was responding to figures from the High Council for Finance, which revised growth forecasts for Flanders for 2012 down from 1.6% to 0.8%. That new forecast would leave Flanders with a hole in the budget of €160 to €245 million. “Fortunately we have built up reserves of €220 million,” Peeters said. “That should help us quite a bit along the way.”

He continued to reject calls for the government to make extra cuts in order to contribute to the federal budget, which will also have to make more cuts based on the revised growth figure. “Flanders has its own needs,” he said. “Think of all the schools that are needed. We will have enough work to do to keep the Flemish budget in balance.”

Last week Peeters met with his counterparts from Wallonia and Brussels, Rudi Demotte and Charles Picqué, to allow the three minister-presidents to work out a common position on the question of contributing to the federal budget. Demotte also took issue with the council’s figures, which point to a gap of €1.4 billion that the regions would have to fill. He also echoed Peeters’ claim that the council’s report was based on old and incomplete figures.

The Association of Flemish cities and municipalities, meanwhile, rejected the council’s argument that the budget deficit was largely a result of the municipalities’ “parlous financial state”. The report is “no basis on which to work,” said the association’s chairman Luc Martens, who is also mayor of Roeselare, West Flanders.

The angriest reaction, however, came from Philippe Muyters, Flanders’ minister for budget, in response to Luc Coene, governor of the National Bank and also chairman of the High Council for Finance. Coene had been one of those advising the regions to cut more to meet their federal obligations and made it clear the federal government would go it alone if it had to, but that “social security could then be called into question”.

“It is nonsense to say that the regions need to cut deeper or there will be cuts to social security,” responded Muyters. “It’s not because Flanders, Wallonia or Brussels make cuts that social security will suddenly be fixed. The social security budget is going to have to be tackled, but that has nothing to do with any of the rest.”