FFB – Flanders Finance & Budget

Budget Highlights

The budgetary balance amounts to -2.0 billion euros in the 2023 adjusted budget (AB). The Government of Flanders always aims for a balanced budget, the so-called balanced budget target. However, due to its efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic, the Flemish government was not able to meet this target in 2022.

Budgetary balance 2022-2023 (in thousands of euros)
AB¹ 2023 IB² 2023 AB¹ 2022
Consolidated ESA revenues (1) 56,838,384 57,018,437 52,059,805
Consolidated ESA expenditures (2) 62,555,985 62,328,162 56,918,712
Consolidated ESA result (3=1-2) -5,717,601 -5,309,725 -4,858,907
Underutilisation (4) 1,652,776 1,390,328 1,229,311
Consolidated ESA result after underutilisation (5=3+4) -4,064,825 -3,919,397 -3,629,596
ESA corrections (6) 997,683 997,683 116,757
Corrected budget balance (7=5+6) -3,067,142 -2,921,714 -3,512,839
Oosterweel project (8) 479,642 339,283 306,434
Recovery plan revenues (9) -511,167 -501,369 -639,300
Recovery plan expenditures (10) 1,129,117 1,140,915 1,600,000
BALANCE AFTER CORRECTIONS (11=7+8+9+10) -1,969,550 -1,942,885 -2,245,705

¹AB: adjusted budget; ²IB: initial budget

Omhoog
How is the budgetary balance calculated?

The difference between the total ESA revenues (56.8 billion euros) and ESA expenditures (62.6 billion euros) equals the consolidated ESA budget balance (-5.7 billion euros).

A number of corrections are applied to obtain the corrected ESA budget balance (-3.1 billion euros):

  • corrections for expected underutilisation (1,652.7 million euros):
    • university colleges and universities (223.8 million euros)
    • other types of underutilisation ((1,428.9 million euros)
  • additional ESA corrections (997.7 million euros)

A few specific items are excluded from the balanced budget target:

  • the construction costs of the Oosterweel link (0.5 billion euros)
  • revenues from the Flemish Resilience recovery plan (0.5 billion euros)
  • expenditures for the Flemish Resilience recovery plan (1.1 billion euros)

That results in the budgetary balance compared to the balanced budget target (-2.0 billion euros).