While Belgium is going in the red year after year, the Netherlands has closed their deficit to 50% and can actually do something meaningful. What’s the difference? Economics? Political spending?

24 comments

  3. Privatization is an element. For example, Dutch students now have to incur student debt. That means a lower state deficit, but instead the debt is created on the necks of those students. Total student debt is already 10 billion, and the system hasn’t been privatized that long – so that will only increase in the future.

    So it doesn’t decrease the amount of debt in the Netherlands, just who owes it.

  4. The Netherlands doesn´t have a region where 1/3rd of the workforce works for the state and where a corrupt socialist party can bribe votes by handing out money.

  5. Gohja er zijn al zen paar goeie redenen gegeven maar Nederland is ook een minder gecompliceerd land. België heeft 3 taalgroepen waarvan 2 vergroeid zijn als een siamese tweeling in Brussel. Of je het nu leuk vind of niet zo’n complexiteit heeft zijn prijs. Of het nu is door het creëren van gewesten en gemeenschappen of wafelijzerpolitiek van vroeger maakt niet veel uit. Betalen zullen we sowieso.

    Alles kost gewoon meer en draait gewoon iets stroever want je dient alles dubbel te doen.
    Een persoonlijk voorbeeld is bevorderingsexamen voor een bepaalde functie op mijn federaal ambtenarenwerk. Men zoekt enkel een paar franstalige kandidaten. Enkel een frans examen mag niet dus hopla ook een vlaams examen met een laureaten lijst zonder dat men daar iets mee gaat doen.
    Nederland komt veel dichter bij een natiestaat en heeft die complexiteit niet. Je hebt natuurlijk het prachtige fries maar de status daarvan kun je moeilijk vergelijken met die van het frans want iedere fries spreekt ook Nederlands.

    Een simpele oplossing hiervoor is er niet want niemand noch Vlamingen noch walen willen hun rechten opgeven ten behoeve van de ander. Het is dan ook een beetje ironisch dat zoveel Vlamingen die op NV-A stemmen omdat zij Vlaanderen eerst plaatsen het dan not-done vinden dat de walen op de PS stemmen en die partij Wallonië eerst plaatst.

    Ps: et pour les wallons le-même

  7. Cultural + add our “we need 7 parties that each need a reason to stay to form a federal gov”

    And you get the shit that is vivaldi.

  8. Netherlands has 1 prime minster and 12 ministers.
    Belgium has 1 prime minister, 3 minister presidents, 12 x 4 ministers, 6 parliaments all these decide to non decide and going circles. Including their cabinets things add up quickly.

  9. 1: Belgium has Walloonia, which combines typical rust belt problems with corruption, clientelism and difficult trade unions.

    2: Our political system has real difficulties to make coalitions due to the importance of excluded parties and working with both the north and thd south. This leads to wacky government with increasingly bad rule.

  12. There is no magic here. Or you enjoy a social system like we know it in Belgium in all its facets or you don’t. Also the Netherlands has sources of well earning gas. That said. I’m sure Belgian politics could cost us a lot less indeed.

  13. I’m questioning if pensions have something to do with it as well. If I’m not mistaken, the Netherlands has a more individually focus, self responsible pension system.

    They have a basic, state sponsored (aka tax payers) pension. But a large part is built up by saving yourself. In Belgium it’s the opposite, we pay a lot via taxes and try to built up a little extra for ourselves along the way.

    With the aging population that state spending is getting quite big, and we don’t have that many more workers than before.

    That said, I don’t know if this all has a big impact because you’d expect lower taxes (state income) of course if everyone has to save more for themselves.

  15. Belgium does so much for its inhabitants though. My college degree? Paid for my the government. Pensions? Paid for by the government. Health care? Mostly paid for by the government. We pay a lotta taxes for it too, but god damn I happily pay those taxes if it means less people are having a really hard time.

  17. Natural gas, NL has made around 10 billion euro annually in profit from this. This is enough to fill up the begroting that BE faces each year twice and make massive improvements where necessary like infrastructure. (WiJ hEbBeN bEtErE wEgEn DaN iN bElGiË)

  18. Something no one has mentioned yet:

    The Netherlands has one of the lowest taxes on IP, it’s only 5%. As a consequence a crazy amount of multinationals worldwide have their headquarters in the NL. So even though 5% is a low tax, because it’s taxed on such a large scale it leads to a high income for the government.

  19. Deficit is meaningless as a stat. Its never going to matter until the point where it’s higher than the combination of wealth and income.

  21. Nederland is zichzelf (nog meer dan Belgie) kapot aan het besparen. Het is echt niet meer hey gidsland dat het ooit was.

  22. Although most comments here jump onto the populistic take blaming it partly on our multiple parliaments and state structure. This is a drop on a hot plate. You will never bring this cost to 0. IMF suggested to save 4 billion. The running cost of our parliaments is around 650 million (no provinces and municipalities included). That’s +- 15% of the amount IMF wants us to save. You could maybe bring that down to 400 million with a more efficient state structure which gives you already 4% of your 4 billion. It’s a starter but definitly not what to focus on. One of the biggest costs for the parliaments are the buildings, not the costs of the people.

  24. From what I had gathered, eigen risico shrunk depending on the amount you paid monthly.

    Maybe the coverage plan is different for transnational workers.

Leave a Reply