Brussels, 20/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - On 20 January, the European Commission declined to comment on reports in the Belgian press predicting that the country's deficit will stand at between 3.2 and 3.3% of GDP, due to budgetary slippage on the part of the federal entities.
“We are following a more structured way to deal with this question, and we will not comment on figures,” said Commission spokesperson Margaritis Schinas. He added that the European institution would take position on the Belgian, French and Italian budgets in early March, as planned.
The Belgian ministers were to meet on Tuesday to finalise the note to send to the Commission. Schinas declined to confirm whether the Commission had received the information to be submitted by Belgium.
Of the seven countries whose draft 2015 budgets could be out of line with the rules of the Stability Pact, France, Belgium and Italy are under particularly close scrutiny. The final verdict will be returned in early March 2015. The Commission will examine their budgetary situations in light of the final versions of the finance bills to be adopted by these countries and the clarifications made to their structural reform programmes, in line with recent commitments taken in writing by the governments of these three countries, in terms of content and timetable.
Belgium came out of excessive deficit procedure in June of last year. The concerns expressed last November regarding the Belgian budget related mainly to government debt, which will stand at around 105% of GDP in 2014 and is expected to climb further, reaching 107.3% of GDP in 2015. The deficit was also up in 2014. (EL)