Belgium’s Prime Minister defended his government’s economic, social and fiscal record when he met the press on Thursday after addressing world leaders at the UN General Assembly earlier in the day.
“In difficult circumstances, we must remember what we have achieved,” Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said, rejecting the idea that Belgium’s situation could be compared to that of Greece, for example.
“We can listen to the prophets of doom who say Belgium is the ‘Greece of the North Sea,’ but is that really the case?" the prime minister asked. “I have a lot of respect for the Greeks, but Belgium is twice as prosperous as Greece,” he said.
Prime Minister De Croo pointed, among other things, to the number of jobs created under his government – “more than during the previous legislature” – the protection of purchasing power – “the best in Europe” – and the confidence shown by the population in the most recent issue of state bonds.
De Croo admitted that all this came at a cost, including in terms of the budget but, at the same time, he wondered what then was the alternative.
“We could have said in the midst of the crisis that we were not going to help people, that thousands of companies could go bankrupt, and hundreds of thousands of people could lose their jobs, that they just had to fend for themselves with the energy bills,” he said. “Those are choices that can be made, but it is not what we chose to do.”
After a period of crisis comes the need to get the budget back on track when recovery begins, the prime minister continued, making a strong case that Belgium is diligently pursuing that effort. “On the fiscal front, we are moving in the right direction,” he stressed.
