The report was the latest in a regular cycle: the OECD presents a report on the economic situation in its member countries every two years. It was presented by Angel Gurria, secretarygeneral of the organisation, who came to Brussels to present its conclusions to acting prime minister Yves Leterme (pictured with Gurria on his left). “Hurrah! Belgium is the only country where good news is presented in three languages,” he joked.

The report presents some positive conclusions: Belgium did better at withstanding the effects of the financial crisis of 2009 than many other OECD countries, with only a modest increase in unemployment. As a result the recovery has been faster, while the budget deficit is falling quickly.

However, a number of issues demand urgent attention:
• Government debt, at 97% of GDP, is still too high, and has to be brought down by cutting spending and making plans for the increased costs in the future associated with the greying of the population. Multi-annual budgeting is also important for longer-term control – although the situation at present prevents the Leterme government from making even one-year budget plans without special dispensation from the King;
• Young people, immigrants and women need special measures to help them gain access to the workforce, for example by allowing a mix of work and studies, and increasing the minimum youth wage. Immigrants would benefit from language training and later streaming in education – in other words being forced to choose between academic, technical or work-related disciplines, something the Flemish government has already proposed;
• Wage costs could be cut by reducing marginal tax rates, by cutting off the avenues to early retirement, and by reforming – and eventually scrapping – the automatic index-linking of pay, something unions are unlikely to swallow easily;
• The economy needs to become greener, by tying energy policies to economic growth. That would involve increasing environmental taxation, which is particularly low in Belgium at the moment; a carbon dioxide tax applied to housing and transport would tackle emissions and raise revenue. The programme would also include congestion charges and road pricing, as well as scale back on company cars and commuting – in other words, increasing the practice of home-working.

Leterme, who was present to receive the report personally from Gurria, welcomes the report's conclusions, but defended the index as a “thermometer” of the economy which pointed the way to developments in the future. Above all, he said, it was “one of the keystones of the Belgian social model.”

Others saw the OECD report differently, taking it and a recent similar report from the EU as a possible avenue of escape from the current government crisis, now in its 14th month. If the economic provisions of the recent note by Elio Di Rupo, which met some resistance because of the apparent discrepancy between budgetary discipline on the one hand, and an imbalance between cost-cutting and new taxation on the other, were to be replaced by the recommendations of the OECD and EU, it was being said, there might be more of a basis for agreement.