Le cadre institutionnel de l’assainissement des finances publiques en Belgique

After ten years of relative respite, Belgium currently has to strengthen its fiscal policy in order to comply with new European requirements. It is thus facing a similar challenge than twenty years ago, when the Dehaene’s governments conducted a rigorous consolidation of public finance in order to join the euro zone. This article compares the fiscal policy implemented at both times by emphasizing two essential developments: the Europeanization of fiscal policy on the one hand, and the federalization of Belgium, on the other hand. The institutional evolutions generated by those two dynamic processes since the early 1990’s are first described. Three dimensions are then systematically compared: the fiscal policy implemented by the federal government, the impact of the Section “Public Sector Borrowing Requirement” and the mechanisms designed to ensure cooperation between the different levels of government.