The federal government has come up with concrete figures on how much it is subsidizing the distribution of paper newspapers with taxpayer money until 2027: the amount is 750 million euros over five years. That remains a huge sum, especially since the country’s largest publisher, DPG Media, is letting it be known to all who want to hear it that they are no longer asking for this state support. But the French-language newspaper publishers, and Bpost itself, are begging for the support, “or they fall over,” according to government circles. Vivaldi therefore decided, despite the harsh budget conditions, to retain the enormous state support and to “phase it out”.
In the news: Well, it’s not actually in the news anywhere. Paper newspapers were reluctant to report on their own subsidy streams, even though they involve hundreds of millions.
The details: A clear table from Minister of Labor Pierre-Yves Dermagne (PS) outlines state aid over the next 6 years.
The Vivaldi team provides clarity: after 178 million euros committed this and next year (according to documents from the Court of Audit), the federal government is again allocating 162.5 million euros in 2023 for the distribution of paper newspapers. The fact that the government is communicating the figure so clearly is new: in the past, the exact amounts were highly secretive.
The amount then decreases further, from 156.2 million euros in 2024 to a still very substantial 137.5 million euros in 2027. To put these amounts in perspective of the recent budget discussion: the new flight tax will yield say, 30 million euros. So paper newspapers still receive a multiple of what an ecological tax on short air journeys would generate.
The clarity comes after a question from member of parliament Michael Freilich. His party N-VA is in favor of radically abolishing the subsidies. “This madness must stop. Once again expensive Belgian subsidies for the distribution of newspapers and magazines. Our bill to put a stop to this was torpedoed by Open Vld and co.”
The context: Solid lobbying forces were at work.
First of all: subsidies have a long history. They stem from the idea that “delivering news” is a so-called “essential service,” a “basic right” for citizens. But the question is whether that should continue in 2021 and into 2027 by continuing to pump massive amounts of money into Bpost, the only company that can de facto enter into the contract that the government issues every time.
For Bpost, a publicly traded company, the stakes are high: they themselves boast about 2,750 jobs, but it is clear that they are also skimming millions of euros of margin from the contract, to shore up their own figures.
With the argument of “jobs” for mainly low-skilled people, Bpost also has the unions on board. The fact that these trade unions, just like the mutual insurance companies and the Christian pillar, can send out their own member magazines more cheaply because of the subsidy also helps, of course, in the argument for maintaining the federal cash flow.
Then there are the traditional paper newspapers, which profit by offering artificially cheap subscriptions. Given the meager profit margins for publishers such as Rossel (Le Soir) and IPM (La Libre, La Dernière Heure) and the fact that in Wallonia people live further apart and newspaper bussing is therefore more expensive, the French-speaking companies are pushing their politicians very hard to maintain support. “Take away the Bpost contract and we will fall,” they have been saying for years.
But at the same time, Rossel is now buying television station RTL-Belgium: quite a contradiction to their “distressed” status. Only: these are media companies, precisely the kind that politicians want to be the very last to oppose.
On the Flemish side, Mediahuis (Nieuwsblad, Belang Van Limburg, De Standaard) also seems to need this subsidy to boost their profit margin somewhat. On the other hand, even in a corona year the profit figures were nicely in the black, and they continue to make foreign acquisitions.
Meanwhile, at DPG Media, the largest publisher in the low countries, a different plea is strikingly heard. There, the company came under fire in the Netherlands for allegedly “financing their takeover journey with Belgian tax money” at their northern neighbor. The absolute top of DPG Media denies this vehemently: only 4% of their turnover still comes from their Belgian paper newspapers and magazines (Het Laatste Nieuws and Dag Allemaal). State aid is therefore “negligible in the whole”.
The annoyance that his company is a “subsidy slurry” that has built up an empire runs very deep in the mind of CEO Christian Van Thillo. At the top of his company it is claimed at great length “that these subsidies may be abolished tomorrow”. For they subtly point out that the price in the Netherlands for distribution, without millions of euros in state aid, is just as high. But there they work with newspaper boys, who do it as students. “In Belgium this has to be done via Bpost, where millions of euros are therefore stuck.”
For now, however, DPG Media is not speaking out publicly on the matter. They do not want to offend the concurrence of the other media: in a pond with three or four fish, they always come across each other, so DPG Media stepped into RTL-Belgium together with Rossel. And critical questions about the social and ecological costs from the paper press will not arise anyway, except as mentioned in the Netherlands.
The Big Picture: Vivaldi concluded an agreement as it always does: a little reform.
“We are gradually reducing, you can clearly see the evolution downward, can’t you?” A deputy prime minister tries to placate the dossier. The fact is that the Liberals have already urged several governments to completely stop the flow of money. In 2014, the then Open Vld vice-premier Alexander De Croo, a great advocate of digitalization, vowed that “this time it would be the last time.”
But the PS, with backing from the MR, made it clear that in times of corona crisis they do not want a social bloodbath at Bpost, where the state still holds a majority of shares. “A little less could do, but no more.”
Among the Greens, the position was double. In times of huge CO2 efforts, it continues to wring such sums of money from an old, polluting industry. But at the same time, their deputy prime minister Petra De Sutter (Green) is also responsible for Bpost, and she also has to “defend” the company.
It is particularly ironic that De Sutter is now campaigning at Bpost for consumers to possibly make an effort to pick up a parcel themselves “for the last 500 meters”, “in function of the climate fight”. And at the very least, they will have to “pay extra” if a parcel is to be delivered within 24 hours. How that reconciles with simultaneously continuing to pump 750 million euros of public money into Bpost to push paper through a letterbox, day after day, is an open question. In any case, it interferes with the claim Vivaldi has been making for some time now to be “the greenest government ever.”
But the Greens also have other arguments for maintaining the subsidy: “There is still a digital divide, not everyone is online. We must not let those people go either.” By the way, the amount of state aid for Bpost would also include a piece to make the “digital transition”.
De Belgische belastingbetalers zien volgend jaar hun staatsschuld dan toch niet afnemen. In het debat over de beleidsverklaring stelde federaal staatssecretaris voor Begroting Eva De Bleeker (Open VLD) vorige week in de Kamer nog dat de schuld zou dalen, al voegde ze eraan toe dat de laatste berekeningen nog bezig waren.
In de begrotingsdocumenten die de federale regering naar de Europese Commissie heeft gestuurd, blijkt echter dat de schuld volgend jaar wel degelijk stijgt: van 113,9 van het bruto binnenlands product (bbp) naar 114,3 procent.
…
België is daarmee voor zover bekend de enige van de EU-lidstaten met zware schulden waar de schuldenlast in 2022 nog stijgt.
…
Het gebrek aan begrotingsambitie blijkt ook uit de uitgaven zelf. In de bij de Commissie ingediende documenten staat hoe groot het collectieve gat was toen bij alle regeringen in België de begrotingsgesprekken moesten beginnen: **4,7 procent van het bbp. Na wekenlange gesprekken is dat gat niet kleiner maar groter geworden: 4,9 procent van het bbp.**
​
FYI:4.9% of bbp is close to 25 billion euro.
We could have solved the lack of beds in teen psychiatric hospitals.
Seems like newspapers are more important.
god knows what other industry’s or services that sell as successful are leeching on subsidies…
Ons bomma dankt u.
The last time I bought a newspaper was because it came with free beer.
Subsidies for physical newspapers? Not environment friendly. That’s a lot of subsidized avoidable waste. Paper can be recycled, but not 100% indefinitely.
I remember a discussion this reddit where someone from the industry said the support was not going to be renewed. I guess the Belgian subsidy addiction is too strong.
11 comments
The federal government has come up with concrete figures on how much it is subsidizing the distribution of paper newspapers with taxpayer money until 2027: the amount is 750 million euros over five years. That remains a huge sum, especially since the country’s largest publisher, DPG Media, is letting it be known to all who want to hear it that they are no longer asking for this state support. But the French-language newspaper publishers, and Bpost itself, are begging for the support, “or they fall over,” according to government circles. Vivaldi therefore decided, despite the harsh budget conditions, to retain the enormous state support and to “phase it out”.
In the news: Well, it’s not actually in the news anywhere. Paper newspapers were reluctant to report on their own subsidy streams, even though they involve hundreds of millions.
The details: A clear table from Minister of Labor Pierre-Yves Dermagne (PS) outlines state aid over the next 6 years.
The Vivaldi team provides clarity: after 178 million euros committed this and next year (according to documents from the Court of Audit), the federal government is again allocating 162.5 million euros in 2023 for the distribution of paper newspapers. The fact that the government is communicating the figure so clearly is new: in the past, the exact amounts were highly secretive.
The amount then decreases further, from 156.2 million euros in 2024 to a still very substantial 137.5 million euros in 2027. To put these amounts in perspective of the recent budget discussion: the new flight tax will yield say, 30 million euros. So paper newspapers still receive a multiple of what an ecological tax on short air journeys would generate.
The clarity comes after a question from member of parliament Michael Freilich. His party N-VA is in favor of radically abolishing the subsidies. “This madness must stop. Once again expensive Belgian subsidies for the distribution of newspapers and magazines. Our bill to put a stop to this was torpedoed by Open Vld and co.”
The context: Solid lobbying forces were at work.
First of all: subsidies have a long history. They stem from the idea that “delivering news” is a so-called “essential service,” a “basic right” for citizens. But the question is whether that should continue in 2021 and into 2027 by continuing to pump massive amounts of money into Bpost, the only company that can de facto enter into the contract that the government issues every time.
For Bpost, a publicly traded company, the stakes are high: they themselves boast about 2,750 jobs, but it is clear that they are also skimming millions of euros of margin from the contract, to shore up their own figures.
With the argument of “jobs” for mainly low-skilled people, Bpost also has the unions on board. The fact that these trade unions, just like the mutual insurance companies and the Christian pillar, can send out their own member magazines more cheaply because of the subsidy also helps, of course, in the argument for maintaining the federal cash flow.
Then there are the traditional paper newspapers, which profit by offering artificially cheap subscriptions. Given the meager profit margins for publishers such as Rossel (Le Soir) and IPM (La Libre, La Dernière Heure) and the fact that in Wallonia people live further apart and newspaper bussing is therefore more expensive, the French-speaking companies are pushing their politicians very hard to maintain support. “Take away the Bpost contract and we will fall,” they have been saying for years.
But at the same time, Rossel is now buying television station RTL-Belgium: quite a contradiction to their “distressed” status. Only: these are media companies, precisely the kind that politicians want to be the very last to oppose.
On the Flemish side, Mediahuis (Nieuwsblad, Belang Van Limburg, De Standaard) also seems to need this subsidy to boost their profit margin somewhat. On the other hand, even in a corona year the profit figures were nicely in the black, and they continue to make foreign acquisitions.
Meanwhile, at DPG Media, the largest publisher in the low countries, a different plea is strikingly heard. There, the company came under fire in the Netherlands for allegedly “financing their takeover journey with Belgian tax money” at their northern neighbor. The absolute top of DPG Media denies this vehemently: only 4% of their turnover still comes from their Belgian paper newspapers and magazines (Het Laatste Nieuws and Dag Allemaal). State aid is therefore “negligible in the whole”.
The annoyance that his company is a “subsidy slurry” that has built up an empire runs very deep in the mind of CEO Christian Van Thillo. At the top of his company it is claimed at great length “that these subsidies may be abolished tomorrow”. For they subtly point out that the price in the Netherlands for distribution, without millions of euros in state aid, is just as high. But there they work with newspaper boys, who do it as students. “In Belgium this has to be done via Bpost, where millions of euros are therefore stuck.”
For now, however, DPG Media is not speaking out publicly on the matter. They do not want to offend the concurrence of the other media: in a pond with three or four fish, they always come across each other, so DPG Media stepped into RTL-Belgium together with Rossel. And critical questions about the social and ecological costs from the paper press will not arise anyway, except as mentioned in the Netherlands.
The Big Picture: Vivaldi concluded an agreement as it always does: a little reform.
“We are gradually reducing, you can clearly see the evolution downward, can’t you?” A deputy prime minister tries to placate the dossier. The fact is that the Liberals have already urged several governments to completely stop the flow of money. In 2014, the then Open Vld vice-premier Alexander De Croo, a great advocate of digitalization, vowed that “this time it would be the last time.”
But the PS, with backing from the MR, made it clear that in times of corona crisis they do not want a social bloodbath at Bpost, where the state still holds a majority of shares. “A little less could do, but no more.”
Among the Greens, the position was double. In times of huge CO2 efforts, it continues to wring such sums of money from an old, polluting industry. But at the same time, their deputy prime minister Petra De Sutter (Green) is also responsible for Bpost, and she also has to “defend” the company.
It is particularly ironic that De Sutter is now campaigning at Bpost for consumers to possibly make an effort to pick up a parcel themselves “for the last 500 meters”, “in function of the climate fight”. And at the very least, they will have to “pay extra” if a parcel is to be delivered within 24 hours. How that reconciles with simultaneously continuing to pump 750 million euros of public money into Bpost to push paper through a letterbox, day after day, is an open question. In any case, it interferes with the claim Vivaldi has been making for some time now to be “the greenest government ever.”
But the Greens also have other arguments for maintaining the subsidy: “There is still a digital divide, not everyone is online. We must not let those people go either.” By the way, the amount of state aid for Bpost would also include a piece to make the “digital transition”.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
And that with your tax money
papiere krant > onderwijs
Just a friendly reminder :
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[https://www.tijd.be/politiek-economie/belgie/federaal/na-weken-begrotingsgesprekken-stijgt-staatsschuld-nog-altijd/10339563.html](https://www.tijd.be/politiek-economie/belgie/federaal/na-weken-begrotingsgesprekken-stijgt-staatsschuld-nog-altijd/10339563.html)
​
De Belgische belastingbetalers zien volgend jaar hun staatsschuld dan toch niet afnemen. In het debat over de beleidsverklaring stelde federaal staatssecretaris voor Begroting Eva De Bleeker (Open VLD) vorige week in de Kamer nog dat de schuld zou dalen, al voegde ze eraan toe dat de laatste berekeningen nog bezig waren.
In de begrotingsdocumenten die de federale regering naar de Europese Commissie heeft gestuurd, blijkt echter dat de schuld volgend jaar wel degelijk stijgt: van 113,9 van het bruto binnenlands product (bbp) naar 114,3 procent.
…
België is daarmee voor zover bekend de enige van de EU-lidstaten met zware schulden waar de schuldenlast in 2022 nog stijgt.
…
Het gebrek aan begrotingsambitie blijkt ook uit de uitgaven zelf. In de bij de Commissie ingediende documenten staat hoe groot het collectieve gat was toen bij alle regeringen in België de begrotingsgesprekken moesten beginnen: **4,7 procent van het bbp. Na wekenlange gesprekken is dat gat niet kleiner maar groter geworden: 4,9 procent van het bbp.**
​
FYI:4.9% of bbp is close to 25 billion euro.
We could have solved the lack of beds in teen psychiatric hospitals.
Seems like newspapers are more important.
god knows what other industry’s or services that sell as successful are leeching on subsidies…
Ons bomma dankt u.
The last time I bought a newspaper was because it came with free beer.
Subsidies for physical newspapers? Not environment friendly. That’s a lot of subsidized avoidable waste. Paper can be recycled, but not 100% indefinitely.
I remember a discussion this reddit where someone from the industry said the support was not going to be renewed. I guess the Belgian subsidy addiction is too strong.
Maar Polen en Hongarije…