Flanders’ consolidated gross debt (concept ‘contribution to the Maastricht debt’) amounted to 35.309 billion euros at the end of 2023. That means an increase of 2.991 billion euros, or 9.26% in relative terms, compared to the end of 2022.
The consolidated debt increased less strongly compared to the direct debt, mainly as a result of repayments by for instance the social housing sector and PPP projects.
The direct financing of the Flemish Social Housing Company (VMSW), the Flemish Housing Fund (VWF) and School Invest replaced financing through guaranteed bank loans in 2015. That results in lower consolidated debt for VMSW and VWF. The consolidated debt of those entities will continue to decrease in the future.
The concept ‘contribution to the Maastricht debt’ is used because the different governments sometimes hold each other’s debt instruments or instruments of other government institutions belonging to the same government or public sector.
The contribution to the Maastricht debt corresponds to the consolidated gross debt of an entity minus the financial assets held of:
- The government’s other subsectors (intersectoral consolidation): 710.31 million euros at the end of 2023
- Other entities belonging to the same subsector (intrasectoral consolidation): 1.552 billion euros at the end of 2023
The consolidated gross debt (contribution to Maastricht debt) reported by the Institute for National Accounts can be further corrected on certain points. The table below explains these corrections (totalling 4.240 billion euros) in detail.
Overview of corrections to the consolidated gross debt at year-end 2023 (in millions of euros)
| Fl. Comm. – Contribution to the consolidated gross debt | (1) | 35,308.84 |
| Debts held issued by other S.13 sectors | (2) | 710.31 |
| Hospital infrastructure | (3) | 2,825.14 |
| Accruals & deferrals relating to SFA | (4) | 684.84 |
| Long-term trade payables | (5) | 2.64 |
| Correction Flemish Community EMTN bonds held by FSPA | (6) | 1.32 |
| Correction debt securities Lak Invest held by FSPA and FHC | (7) | 7.42 |
| Use of more recent and accurate data | (8) | 31.05 |
| Total corrections | (9) = (2)+(3)+(4)-(5)-(6)-(7)+(8) | 4,239.97 |
| TOTAL | (10) = (1)+(9) | 39,548.80 |