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Belgian govt considers

special powers for budget

BRUSSELS: The Belgian government is considering asking parliament for special powers to draft the 1997 budget in June, a top government official said on Friday.

"If we want to be sure the budget deficit is cut to three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1996, measures for the 1997 budget will need to take effect in the second half of this year," the official told Reuters.

"That can only be done if the government uses special powers, which is being discussed within the government," the official, who declined to be identified, added.

When parliament allows the government to rule with special powers, measures decided take immediate force of law without parliamentary approval.

Special powers were last used in 1982 when a mix of high inflation and weak economic growth forced the government of Wilfried Martens to take several packages of far-reaching austerity measures and to devalue the franc.

Another political source told Reuters that Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene's centre-left cabinet was keeping the special powers option open in case a draft jobs pact between government, unions and employers was not approved by the agreed date of April 29.

A spokeswoman for Dehaene said that talk about special powers was speculation.

"Any scenario advanced now, before we know what happens after April 29, is pure speculation," she said.

The jobs pact aims to halve Belgian unemployment by the year 2002. But the deal, agreed by top union and employers officals last week, has come under fire from grassroots unionists. Several union federations have already said they will vote against it.

Unions are critical of the fact that the pact includes a cap on wages but is vague about how jobs will be created.

The 1997 budget was originally scheduled to be drafted in September. But several sources said that as soon as the review of the 1996 budget was completed on May 5, the government would turn its attention to the 1997 plan.

The government's target of cutting the state deficit to three percent of GDP in 1996 -- a condition for joining the European single currency in 1999 -- has come under threat as 1996 GDP growth is falling short of the 1.6 percent forecast by the government earlier this year.

Several private forecasters have put out forecasts for 1996 growth around or just over 1.0 percent.-Reuter