In a New Year's video message posted on social media on Friday, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo presented his election programme for the coming months: no new state reform, but cooperation.
Even though De Croo's Flemish liberal Open VLD party is doing poorly in the polls and his Federal Government often faces criticism, he pointed out the merits of his government and asked people to be optimistic about the future.
"It has been an eventful year of tensions and conflicts, far from us but also close by. Many of us worry about tomorrow, and so do I. Here in the Rue de la Loi, people have sometimes been too preoccupied with themselves over the past year, and we undermined the people's faith in our abilities."
Still, De Croo stressed that Belgium is doing well in many respects – in particular on the economic front. "Figures from the National Bank confirm this: solid growth in our country, while our neighbouring countries have almost zero growth."
Better together
"Almost 300,000 jobs have been created since the start of this government. We are one of Europe's innovation leaders," he said. "We should rightly be proud of that. But we should not get complacent."
De Croo's resolution for the new year is to grow the Belgian economy, to get more people working and to strengthen the middle class. "We can do that even better if we do it together. That is the task for all governments in this country."
He criticised efforts to destabilise national unity by wasting energy on inter-regional disputes: "We are absolutely not going to invest our time in that, it will not benefit anyone. I believe in what our country is capable of but the challenges we face are enormous."
He referred to the task of reconciling the fight against climate change with an innovative economy and said this would lead the strong industrial policy Belgium will follow in its European Presidency.
The Prime Minister celebrated progress on Belgium's energy supply, saying that "after many years of doubt and delay" it is now secured for the future.
"Our purchasing power is also well protected. Thanks to the automatic index and targeted support, purchasing power has risen 3% for families." However, De Croo acknowledged the ongoing concern about prices and said that "Keeping the cost of living under control is a permanent challenge."
The Prime Minister did also not deny that the country's budget needs to improve. Additionally, he stressed that 2024 will be an important (election) year, with a large group of young people voting for the first time. "To those young people in particular I want to say: doomsayers preach the end of everything, including our country. They want to demolish everything. I am going to continue to resist that, even if it means rowing against the current."
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"Solving problems is never quick and rarely easy. I experience that every day, but it is the only way forward," De Croo said. "Cooperation or obstruction: that is the choice we face. A divided country will never be a strong country, but to improve it you also have to believe in it, surely everyone understands that?"
Lastly, he touched upon the different wars around the world. "Too many people live in war or in fear. Whether in the Middle East, Ukraine or many other places around the world, there have been too many innocent civilian casualties in the past year. This has to stop."
