What you see is not what you get: Belgium is not a free market economy
Perception often takes precedence over reality these days. In a series of articles, Belga English considers how Belgium is perceived and compares it with the facts. Today: yes, freedom and private initiative are praised, but the government is always present, dictating rules, and often as a competitor.
The principle is simple and widely accepted: Belgium is a free market economy with social and environmental corrections. The problem is also simple: the number of corrections has increased significantly over the years.
Eurosceptics blame the EU for inventing too many rules and obligations, but inside Belgium, the EU has a lot of competition. The Belgian Official Gazette published 144,226 pages last year. In 2000, it was a mere 47,248 pages, but since 2017, it’s been more than 100,000 pages every year.
There are often good reasons to pass new laws and implement extra rules and procedures: to protect living conditions, to help those in need, to mitigate climate change.
But there are also less altruistic reasons: most professions have very efficient lobbying machines at their disposal and have influenced legislation to protect themselves. This goes for everyone from the neighbourhood pharmacist to the multinational energy producer.
Many people, particularly in the business world, complain ever louder. There are just too many rules, from too many authorities. The regulations are complex and the procedures are obscure, expensive and time-consuming.
In a recent official report, the EU was clear: “A high regulatory burden and complexity impairs Belgium’s business environment,” it reads.
“The fragmentation of policy action across levels of government and the absence of effective coordination makes the business environment complex. 81 per cent of Belgian firms experience challenges in complying with regulatory requirements, well above the EU average (60 per cent).”
The advice is self-evident: simplify regulation, improve regulatory tools, reduce administrative burden and remove barriers to trade and competition, in particular in the services sector and regulated professions.
Core tasks
In addition to the problem of red tape, the fact that Belgian authorities are omnipresent and often compete with private companies poses a challenge.
The different authorities organise, offer or subsidise cultural events, festivities, publications, training, shops, media, sports… There’s not one aspect of society in which the public sector is not active.
There has been talk for decades about holding a debate on what should be the core tasks of the public sector, but the reality is that the public sector takes on more and more tasks. This is often in direct competition with the private sector – which pays the taxes that the public sector uses to do all those things.
© BELGA PHOTO HERWIG VERGULT and HATIM KAGHAT
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