FFB – Flanders Finance & Budget

Budget Highlights

The budgetary balance amounts to -2.6 billion euros in the 2024 initial budget (IB). The Government of Flanders always aims for a balanced budget, the so-called balanced budget target.

Budgetary balance 2023-2024 (in thousands of euros)
IB¹ 2024 AB² 2023 IB¹ 2023
Consolidated ESA revenues (1) 58,454,679 56,838,384 57,018,437
Consolidated ESA expenditures (2) 64,064,211 62,555,985 62,328,162
Consolidated ESA result (3=1-2) -5,609,532 -5,717,601 -5,309,725
Underutilisation (4) 1,693,617 1,652,776 1,390,328
Consolidated ESA result after underutilisation (5=3+4) -3,915,915 -4,064,825 -3,919,397
ESA corrections (6) 173,163 997,683 997,683
Corrected budget balance (7=5+6) -3,724,752 -3,067,142 -2,921,714
Oosterweel project (8) 612,118 479,642 339,283
Recovery plan revenues (9) -431,635 -511,167 -501,369
Recovery plan expenditures (10) 896,361 1,129,117 1,140,915
BALANCE AFTER CORRECTIONS (11=7+8+9+10) -2,647,908 -1,969,550 -1,942,885

¹IB: initial budget; ²AB: adjusted budget

Omhoog
How is the budgetary balance calculated?

The difference between the total ESA revenues (58.5 billion euros) and ESA expenditures (64.1 billion euros) equals the consolidated ESA budget balance (-5.6 billion euros).

A number of corrections are applied to obtain the corrected ESA budget balance (-3.7 billion euros):

  • corrections for expected underutilisation (1,693.6 million euros):
    • university colleges and universities (219.0 million euros)
    • other types of underutilisation ((1,474.6 million euros)
  • additional ESA corrections (173.2 million euros)

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

  • the construction costs of the Oosterweel link (0.6 billion euros)
  • revenues from the Flemish Resilience recovery plan (0.4 billion euros)
  • expenditures for the Flemish Resilience recovery plan (0.9 billion euros)

That results in the budgetary balance compared to the balanced budget target (-2.6 billion euros).