2023-11-08 06:56:00
There is no shortage of large-scale projects in the Brussels region. However, does the capital have the means to achieve its ambitions?
The question, which arises insistently in the Metro North project, is also relevant for the Kanal project, intended to promote Brussels’ artistic dynamism internationally. This museum of modern and contemporary art, built in the former Citroën garage on the banks of the canal, is due to open in the fall of 2025.
“The next legislature will be very tough”, warned the regional Budget Minister, Sven Gatz, in mid-October in La Librefollowing having given birth in pain to a budget agreement which provides for an overall saving of 150 million euros compared to the previous budget – a far cry from the 584 million euros necessary to achieve a balanced budget…
The Kanal project will also be targeted by the Brussels government’s savings measures. “Kanal makes an effort like everyone else. There will be a reduction of 3% on salaries, 5% on operating costs and 10% on investments,” explains the spokesperson for Sven Gatz (Open VLD), Brussels Minister of Finance.
“A budgetary effort must be made by all administrations, so we are doing it too,” adds the spokesperson for Rudi Vervoort (PS), Minister-President of Brussels, who specifies that the saving will amount to 2.691 million euros. in 2024 (for a total annual allocation of 30.5 million euros instead of 33.2 million euros.)
This reduction in Kanal’s resources is, in any case, the result of tough budgetary negotiations. Initially, the socialists tried to exclude the Kanal project from budget cuts.
”Rudi Vervoort’s baby”
“Kanal is Rudi Vervoort’s baby, even if it costs a lot of money,” summarizes a political source. Several members of the government, including environmentalists Alain Maron and Barbara Trachte, pushed for the project to be included in the linear economies imposed on a whole series of sectors, which include a moratorium on new commitments in the Brussels public service, or even the increase in the ticket at the Stib.
Price increase at Stib in fall 2024: here is how much prices should increase
However, the PS does not come out of the negotiations undressed. Far from it. Because the amounts that will be invested in the Kanal project in 2024, despite the savings, will be significantly higher than in the current management contract (29 million euros per year), which ends this year.
“Review budgetary ambitions downwards”
The new 2024-2028 management contract, validated in July by the Brussels government, will reach a total of 212 million euros, or 42 million euros per year on average (Editor’s note: the amount will increase when the museum is in operation).
The 2.6 million euros in savings made therefore remain modest.
Indeed, according to the latest figures communicated by the Vervoort firm, the Kanal project will have cost 391.7 million euros by 2028. “Suffice to say that it is a lot of regional money for a project which suffers from a lack of transparency in its implementation and, as a result, a significant lack of support from a certain number of Brussels residents”, points out Pierre-Yves Lux (Ecolo), MP member of the majority, who pleads for “more sobriety in this project.”
If almost no one contests the initiative in substance, within the majority as well as the opposition, its cost raises serious questions, while Brussels’ finances are bloodless.
At the beginning of July, the Finance Inspectorate had in fact given a negative (and deadly) opinion on the first draft management contract for 2024-2028, estimating that the Kanal Foundation “should revise its budgetary ambitions downward in order to return to reasonable margins.”
Rudi Vervoort, as well as Yves Goldstein, Kanal’s project manager, who is none other than his former chief of staff, rejected the analysis, judging on the contrary the financing to be reasonable.
gull
Kanal has become a matter of principle. Today, everything indicates that this project will cost us an aircraft carrier. What the government has communicated, to summarize quite quickly, amounts to saying that we have gone too far to turn back.”
“Kanal has become a matter of principle,” summarizes Gaëtan Van Goidsenhoven, MP MR. Today, everything indicates that this project will cost us an aircraft carrier. What the government has communicated, to summarize quite quickly, amounts to saying that we have gone too far to turn back.”
“Stop the delusions of grandeur”
“The Kanal project was originally a good idea, but the budgets have completely gone out of control, with a 50% increase compared to the initial budget,” adds Christophe De Beukelaer (les Engagés), Brussels MP. “Given the complete slippage of the Brussels budget, such a project cannot be continued as is. Stop the delusions of grandeur. Brussels must focus on its essential and existential missions.”
Mass is not said in this file. A comparative study will be carried out with other museums of the same type, for April 2024, in order to objectivize the cost, whether too high or not, of the project. Within the majority and the opposition, some intend to put the question of financing this museum back on the table, following the next elections. This will require scrapping with Rudi Vervoort.
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