Belgium: The Lambermont Agreement

In 2001 both Chambers of the Belgian parliament endorsed a special law that substantially changed the revenue structure of Belgium’s regional entities and the financial balance between the federal and the regional level. The Lambermont Agreement, as it was called, consisted of two distinct elements: i) the re-assignment of several taxes to the regions and further tax autonomy for them and ii) a considerable increase of federal transfers to the communities. The Lambermont Agreement was the latest in a succession of fiscal decentralisation reforms and the widest-reaching tax assignment reform since Belgium had started to decentralise in the 1970s ().