Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Twitter
Yahoo!
TechnoratiNew government possible for Belgium after 2012 budget deal
Belgian politicians have reached a deal on the 2012 budget ending a 19-month deadlock that had blocked the formation of a new government. A marathon 17-hours of negotiations ended on Saturday with agreement between the six parties on reconciling spending cuts with tax increases.
A credit downgrade by rating agency Standard and Poor's by one notch to AA on Friday night had put pressure on the six Flemish and French-speaking parties to fix a deficit-cutting budget before financial markets re-opened on Monday..
With a national debt equivalent to one year’s economic output, outgoing Prime Minister Yves
|
Leterme made it clear he feared a rout when markets re-open on Monday if an agreement could not be found.
The parties had to work out how to trim 11.3 billion euros off the deficit next year and some 20 billion in all by 2015.
Finance Minister Didier Reynders blamed the downgrade on a global loss of confidence in eurozone public finances, while insisting that the country’s creditworthiness remained “one of the strongest in Europe”.
The ratings blow underlined a sharp escalation of the debt crisis this week which saw even Germany struggle to raise finance.
Comments
React to this article