Regions and communities.

Debt of the Flemish Community can be distinguished in four
categories: the legal person ‘Flemish Government’, consolidated gross debt, the
price of debt and the guaranteed debt.

**1.**
Legal person

According
to the Belgian court of audit, the Flemish Government had a debt of 4.681
million euro in 2014. This is a slight increase in comparison to 2011 and 2012.
However[dp1] , if compared to 2010, when the Government still had a debt of 6.611
million euro, they are doing a lot better due to saving policy. This decrease
gives good hope for the future (table 1).

**2.       Consolidated gross debt**

Consolidated
gross debt means debt on long terms. As shown on the statistics, the total consolidated
debt contributes 18.763,1 million euro in 2014.
**Remark:** not all costs are
included. Het Belgian court of audit has estimated a 50-million-euro gap with
their calculations (Table 2).

**3.       Cost price of debts**
This includes interests and other extra costs for
redemption of loans and more. The Flemish Government has paid 110,2 million
euro in this category

**4.**
**Guaranteed debt**

Guaranteed
debts are loans from organizations and governments that are protected by the
Flemish Government.
As you can see, the statistics show a strong increase in 2014. This can be
explained by the low interest rates and severe bank conditions (Table 3).

Different elements influence the total indebtedness. First of all,
due to the sixth state reform a lot of responsibilities were transferred to the
Flemish level such as economic policy, energy, etc. This means a lot more
responsibilities, financial and political.

Secondly, the ageing of the population asks more and more attention.
According to research of the Flemish Government, 25% of the population of
Flanders will be 65 or older by 2030. To maintain this, the government
anticipates already by building homes for elderly, stimulating the training of
nursery, encouraging home care,
Other factors like policy or the present refugee crisis also have an impact on
the public debt.

To reduce this shortage, the governments made a ‘Pact2020’. This
provides a cutback of the total consolidated debt of the Flemish Government by
2020. Unfortunately, this plan has disappeared in the Community budget of 2015.

Another solution is the Public Private Partnership (PPP). According to this
vision governments costs will diminish because the strains of private
organizations. The main idea is that the private sector gets an active role in
the accomplishment of policy objectives. Consistent with simulations of the
Flemish Government, PPP would diminish the governments to 22% of the investment
instead of 73% (Publiek-private samenwerking en ESR-neutraliteit, 2005).
Next, the government is making many cuts in his expenses, for example the
dismissal of the living bonus, cuts in culture and education,…  This policy of cutbacks can be dangerous
because it can cause negative effects on long-term but it has one big
advantage: a budget in balance (Toelichting meerjarenraming 2016-2021, 2015).

The Belgian court of audit (control system of the Belgian State) has
a few objections (Onderzoek van de aanpassing van de Vlaamse begroting 2015,
2015). The main objection is the financial hocus-pocus with numbers of the
Flanders accountancy by eliminating expensive matters. Het Belgian court of
audit stresses that the Flemish Government has to set a transparent objective
to eliminate their consolidated debt in dialogue with the Federal Government.

In 2016, the Flemish Government expects a shortage of 291,7 billion
euro (Table 4). This is included the costs of the refugee crisis. Besides,
there is an expected increase of the consolidated debt caused by building the
Oosterweel-construction (a complex infrastructural and political situation in
Antwerp, for more information see https://www.oosterweelverbinding.be/)
and the costs of housing (respectively VMSW and VWF, as seen in the table
subsequent).