Flemish government reached agreement on budget 2018

The agreement contains an alternative to the highly controversial energy tax put into place by the former Flemish Minister for Energy, Annemie Turtelboom. The Constitutional Court annulled the tax of 100 euros per year whose goal was to polish off the debts created by green electricity subsidies from the past.

Just before the summer, the liberal Flemish Minister for Energy Bart Tommelein said that he could come up with an alternative that would cost barely ten euros. However, the coalition partners (N-VA and CD&V) are critical about this option.

We will have to wait until Monday to see what exactly has been agreed on. Flemish Prime Minister Geert Bourgeois is going to deliver his annual statement (called "September declaration") to the Flemish Parliament. The assumed "structural balance" in the budget is apparently going to be achieved. Last week, it sounded that there was still 250 to 300 million euros to be distributed out of the total budget of almost 40 billion euros.

The costs for the Oosterweel link in Antwerp, an infrastructure project that should ease congestion problems around the port city, are also kept out of the budgetary targets.