Laaouej said Saint-Josse\u2019s dire financial situation could not be attributed to the Brussels region\u2019s wider budgetary issues alone, and pointed at \u201csystemic dysfunctions\u201d in the commune, including accounting and budget \u201cirregularities\u201d and \u201cserious shortcomings in personnel management.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the minister, the municipality has racked up a budget deficit of over \u20ac30 million despite receiving over \u20ac21 million in short-term loans to prevent it from defaulting on its payments since 2025. \u201cThe findings show structural problems in management and governance that have contributed to the steady deterioration of the municipality\u2019s financial situation,\u201d Laoouej said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Under the mechanism triggered by the regional government, Saint-Josse must now move to address these issues by a set deadline, or risk having Brussels appoint a special commissioner to effectively take over parts of the local administration.<\/p>\n
In a reaction, Saint-Josse Mayor Emir Kir called the government\u2019s decision \u201can act of unprecedented brutality\u201d which was \u201cneither fair nor respectful of the [municipality], local democracy, or, above all, the residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kir said he\u2019d challenge the decision and complained regional leaders had ignored the explanations given by the municipality to explain the alleged discrepancies. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf it is about the figures, we dispute them,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the aim is to muddy the waters and attempt a diversion from far more serious issues occurring in other municipalities, no one is fooled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saint-Josse borders the Brussels district that houses the headquarters of the EU institutions and hosts the periodic meetings of the bloc\u2019s heads of state and government. Several departments of the European Commission operate out of office buildings located within the municipality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laaouej said Saint-Josse\u2019s dire financial situation could not be attributed to the Brussels region\u2019s wider budgetary issues alone,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[104],"tags":[211,210,31405],"class_list":["post-94154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-belgium","tag-brussels","tag-brussels-bubble"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116652957136484428","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}