2023-10-13 08:19:21
On Sunday October 13, 2024, Belgian citizens (but also registered foreign citizens) over the age of 18 will once again be called to the polls. This will take place after the triple ballot on June 9, 2024, where federal, regional and European deputies will have to be elected.
It should also be noted that, this October 13, 2024, the provincial elections will also take place in Flanders and Wallonia. For completeness, the elections will also take place district in Antwerp and the direct elections of CPAS councilors in Fourons, Comines-Warneton and in the six municipalities with facilities on the outskirts of Brussels.
State of affairs…
An avalanche of crises
Since the last local election in 2018, the Kingdom’s 581 municipalities have most often found themselves on the front line to face various unprecedented crises: the Covid crisis and the management of wearing masks in the street, the floods of summer 2021, the reception of refugees, from Ukraine and elsewhere, the surge in energy prices, galloping inflation which are causing costs and personnel costs to explode and the ensuing economic shock which is boosting the number of beneficiaries of the Social Integration Income (RIS), financed in part by the municipal CPAS.
Of course, cities and towns were not affected with the same intensity, even if, ultimately, they had to withstand these crises.
Big cities, small towns, “I think the problems are the same. There is the level of amplitude that changes” notes Benoît Piedboeuf, deputy mayor (MR) of Tintigny, a rural commune in Gaume with 4,400 inhabitants. “But I think that in a small municipality, we have a small number of staff members, whereas in a large municipality, we have many more staff members” to confront these crises.
Very different reality in St-Josse-ten-Noode in the Brussels region. Zoé Genot (Ecolo) in opposition for 15 years makes this observation: “St-Josse has 28,000 inhabitants per 1 km²! It is a very concentrated habitat with the poorest inhabitants of Belgium, with one of the youngest populations in the country, multicultural but with many difficulties”. During the various crises, it was necessary to organize food packages for part of the population. The elected green deplores: St-Josse has the poorest population in the country but the town is rich thanks to the taxes collected on the office towers in the Northern Quarter and on the numerous hotels in this part of the Brussels region.
Exploding costs
But in recent years, municipalities have been faced with numerous expenses to properly finance police zones, emergency zones or to help the population, particularly during Covid or the energy crisis.
All this particularly affected social spending. In Tintigny, the mayor recognizes that the impact has been limited, even if an increase can be noted.
Thus, the CPAS of Charleroi, the largest in Wallonia and Brussels. It alone employs 2,140 people, manages a budget of €363 million which is divided into 40% personnel costs, 55% transfers (money from other levels of power) and 5% management costs. functioning.
With successive crises, the president of the CPAS, Philippe Van Cauwenberghe (PS) saw the number of RIS beneficiaries increase from 7,714 in 2018 to 9,121 this year.
You should know that the federal government only finances 70% of this RIS, the rest being the responsibility of the city, i.e. €30 million for Charleroi.
“With these 30 million, I could hire staff, educators to help people get back to work and thus break this negative spiral which means that people often end up returning to the CPAS after having left it”notes the president.
“It’s very hard not to be able to resolve the basic problems when we are reduced to managing emergencies on a daily basis”, deplores Philippe Van Cauwenberghe. The number of RISs to manage increased by 20%, while the staff increased by… 1%.
The municipal elections will therefore take place next year in a difficult context. In several localities, outgoing mayors even prefer not to run again, due to the workload but because of the difficulties encountered.
The pressure on them is indeed becoming stronger and stronger.
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