Les (f)acteurs extérieurs et la crise belge de 2010-2011

Pression de la Commission européenne et des marchés financiers ? Sortie de crise !

Abstract

This article describes and examines the external context in which the negotiations to compose the Belgian budget for 2012 took place, after more than 500 days of work on institutional issues. We show how two exterior circumstances unlocked in only five days the negotiations then on standstill after the resignation of Mr. Elio Di Rupo, then in charge of forming a cabinet. We first demonstrate that Belgium was threatened with a European fine of 710 million euros as part of the Excessive Deficit Procedure in the absence of a budget for 2012. This issue of the Belgian debt is set within the wider European context of the impact of a rise in interest rates on public debt. The Greek scenario – some say « spectrum » – is also evoked. In a second time, we shed light on the political reasons that explain why Belgium was downgraded by Standard & Poor’s, and we study how this downgrading dramatically accelerated the negotiations, which at that time seemed to have come to a dead end.