The European Commission has given Belgium until mid-March to submit its budget plans for the coming years, a Commission spokesperson announced on Tuesday.
Belgium should have submitted a structural plan for the budget, reforms and medium-term investments back in September. However, due to the ongoing Federal Government formation at the time, Belgium requested a second postponement on 26 December.
The Commission has now set the deadline for mid-March, according to a letter it sent to the Belgian Government on Friday 7 February.
"A limited further postponement of the submission of the plan will not be detrimental to the quality of macroeconomic surveillance and budgetary discipline," spokesperson Balazs Ujvari explained.
The mid-March deadline gives the Commission six weeks to evaluate the plans, until the end of April. By the end of April, Prime Minister Bart De Wever (N-VA) must also inform the Commission of the measures it is taking to eliminate its excessive budget deficit.
Since last year, Belgium's budget deficit has been higher than the threshold of 3% of gross domestic product (GDP).
In the absence of a government, a European reference trajectory over four years was established in November to rid the country of its excessive deficit by 2027.
However, some flexibility can be shown if Belgium can demonstrate with a credible plan of reforms and investments that it can sustainably improve public finances over a maximum period of seven years.
