In January 1980, Robert Maldague, the Belgian Planning Commissioner, discreetly circulated a confidential report entitled The Impossible Scenario. This document sounded a dire warning: faced with the mounting deficit in the state budget, soaring interest rates, inflation, sluggish growth, and a worsening dependency ratio heralding an increasing burden of recipients of State transfers, the Belgian franc teetered on the brink of “collapse,” and the “survival” of the social security system was at stake (Bogaert, de Biolley, and Maldague Reference Bogaert, de Biolley, Maldague, Steinherr and Weiserbs1987). The report portrayed not just a fiscal crisis but an existential threat to the economic and social fabric of the country, demanding immediate action, starting with stabilizing public finances and lowering corporate costs to restore the competitiveness of Belgian exports.
Anticipating that the Socialist-led Ministry of Economic Affairs would dilute the report’s message, Maldague bypassed formal consultation procedures within and outside the Planning Bureau. Leveraging his position and network, he informally circulated it among select political elites,Footnote 1 making it the first document to circulate outside the Planning Bureau without government endorsement. Furthermore, after its release, no plan would ever again be submitted to parliament. The Impossible Scenario marked a tipping point: from 1980 onward, Belgian planning progressively departed from the principles established in 1970—formalism (to ensure democratic legitimacy), legislative backing (to guarantee implementation), and the subordination of experts to political decision-making (to prevent the Bureau from preempting democratic control). To its contemporaries, it was a coup—or, as Maldague himself described it, a “firebrand.”Footnote 2 For this seasoned bureaucratic strategist, it was not the first.
Five years earlier, he had similarly forced the publication of the Maldague Report, written by a group of center-left economists with ties to planning. By contrast to The Impossible Scenario, the 1976 Report interpreted inflation as the structural consequence of the unchecked power of multinational corporations, and of a growth model that prioritized quantity over quality of life, fueling inflationary consumption (Warlouzet Reference Warlouzet, Segers and Van Hecke2023). Its call for stronger state regulation of multinationals, increased publicly funded “social income,” and planning, conceived as a “vital” decision-making instrument to achieve this new development model democratically,Footnote 3 put it in direct conflict with Wilhelm Haferkamp, the center-right German Social Democrat European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, who sought to suppress it. With the support of Jacques Delors, one of its co-authors and later President of the European Commission (1985–1995), Maldague countered by leaking it to the press, ensuring it could find an audience amongst European trade unionists and the Socialist Group in the European Parliament (Andry Reference Andry2022, 183).
The contrast between these two interventions—their messages, circulation strategies, and audiences—lies at the heart of this article. Rather than treating The Impossible Scenario as merely a report, this article examines it as a political moment that signaled a profound transformation in the function of planning, and of the role it proposed for economic expertise in policymaking. Analyzing The Impossible Scenario reveals a politically significant change in what it meant to “plan.” Western planning shifted its focus from democratically controlling the economy through structured broad consultation around priorities and numerical targets, to adapting states and societies to external constraints perceived as inexorable, drawing on foresight (Andersson Reference Andersson2019, Reference Andersson2020; Seefried Reference Seefried, Patricia and Kraft2024). Planning was both neoliberalized—repurposed to support market-oriented reforms—and neoliberalizing, actively helping to enact those reforms, thereby shaping the Belgian neoliberalization process.
Curiously, the Planning Bureau gained greater independence and influence precisely as the formal planning procedure it was created to support was abandoned. One of its first internally developed macroeconomic models, MARIBEL, also soon acquired public visibility when, in March 1981, the Planning Bureau—in line with The Impossible Scenario’s emphasis on reducing direct taxation on labor—made the radical proposal to replace social security contributions with general taxation, partly offset by a VAT increase (Evrard Reference Evrard, Piron and Evrard2023; Maldague Reference Maldague1981, 315). MARIBEL—which stands for Model for Analysis and Rapid Investigation of the Belgian Economy—was a short-to-medium-term model designed to simulate alternative policies. Like other large macroeconomic models of the period (Goutsmedt et al. Reference Goutsmedt, Pinzón-Fuchs, Renault and Sergi2019; Halsmayer Reference Halsmayer2024; Hatem Reference Hatem1993; Renault Reference Renault2020), it retained a Keynesian foundation while integrating greater attention to supply-side dynamics. This connects The Impossible Scenario to contemporary debates on the fate of global Keynesianism within international bureaucracies such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Schmelzer Reference Schmelzer2016; Gayon Reference Gayon2017).
Careful investigation of The Impossible Scenario, however, suggests that the political function of planning was redefined not by MARIBEL’s technical architecture alone, but through its convergence with foresight scenarios. Foresight scenarios are scripted visions of plausible futures designed to govern present decisions (Andersson Reference Andersson2018; Reference Andersson2020). Their integration with econometric modeling in the late 1970s is striking: as Armatte (Reference Armatte2008) shows, the two had historically evolved as distinct—and at times competing—ways of engaging with the future. This article traces their convergence within the Belgian Planning Bureau as a strategic response to a widely perceived crisis of planning. In a rapidly changing economic and political context marked by considerable uncertainty, the Bureau faced fears of marginalization as policymakers increasingly bypassed formal planning procedures. Its repurposing of existing tools, bringing macroeconomics closer to foresight, was part of institutional survival, and it was not confined to Belgium (Lenel Reference Lenel2023).
By analyzing this critical juncture (Capoccia and Kelemen Reference Capoccia and Kelemen2007) in the redeployment from within of Belgian planning, this article challenges the implicit assumption in recent political economy literature (e.g., Ban and Hasselbalch Reference Ban and Hasselbalch2024; Durand and Keucheyan Reference Durand and Keucheyan2024) that planning disappeared under neoliberalism. Instead, drawing on a constructivist understanding of crisis as an interpretive process (Angeli Aguiton, Cabane, and Cornilleau Reference Angeli Aguiton, Cabane and Cornilleau2019; Hay Reference Hay1999; Roitman Reference Roitman2013), it argues that planning was reoriented toward new goals through a process that, in retrospect, appears as a blend of agency and bricolage. Interventions like The Impossible Scenario were not merely remnants of a bygone era; they reflected an active and profound transformation in the role of the Planning Bureau—and, with it, in the artefacts, networks, and practices developped to plan.
To understand how and why, this study conceptualizes planning as a politically flexible infrastructure—one that proved resilient, adapting beyond the political project that initially shaped it. Theoretically, the article draws on economic geography (Brenner, Peck, and Theodore Reference Brenner, Peck and Theodore2010) and historical institutionalism (Hacker Reference Hacker, Streeck and Thelen2005; Mahoney and Thelen Reference Mahoney and Ann Thelen2010) to conceptualize neoliberalization as an ongoing, uneven process of marketization shaped by evolving institutions and policy instruments—including from within planning bureaucracies themselves (Andersson and Prat Reference Andersson and Prat2015; Andersson Reference Andersson2018; Angeletti Reference Angeletti2021; Bockman and Eyal Reference Bockman and Eyal2002; Kayzel Reference Kayzel2019). Methodologically, the article performs a multi-level analysis (Jepperson and Meyer Reference Jepperson and Meyer2011), connecting macro-level transformations (neoliberalization), meso-level institutional adaptation, and micro-level epistemic shifts within the Planning Bureau.
It draws on a range of archival records.Footnote 4 While the Planning Bureau’s archives provided extensive technical documentation, they contained significant gaps, including the original document of The Impossible Scenario. They also offer little insight into the political negotiations and informal exchanges that shaped planning decisions. I therefore turned to the archives of actors and institutions linked to planning, and to Maldague’s public writings and interventions. Between 2018 and 2021, I also conducted nine semi-structured interviews with former planners and policymakers. Given the clandestine nature of The Impossible Scenario, these sources were essential in reconstructing the motivation of its authors as well as its content, circulation and impact.
The article is structured as follows. Section 1 situates the rise of foresight scenarios within planning infrastructures, tracing how they evolved from alternatives to complements to traditional macroeconomic modeling and planning techniques. It situates foresight scenarios within broader debates in the history of applied economic knowledge, addressing the conceptual distinction between plans, models, and scenarios, and positioning The Impossible Scenario within this evolving interventionist knowledge. To explain why foresight scenarios, combined with macroeconomic modeling, came to be seen as more effective than the legally mandated five-year plans, section 2 examines the (dys)functioning of the Belgian planning infrastructure, from origins to crisis. It interprets the crisis of Belgian planning as opening a space for experimentation with alternative planning techniques.
The last two sections focus on The Impossible Scenario. Section 3 explores the document’s construction, detailing how it combined macroeconomic modeling with foresight techniques to craft a persuasive narrative of crisis and policy intervention. It highlights that the scenario technique shaped the language and framing but also the numerical calculations of The Impossible Scenario. Section 4 then analyzes the political significance of The Impossible Scenario. It examines the bureaucratic struggles within the Planning Bureau surrounding its production, the document’s informal circulation amid broader debates on the crisis—not just of planning, but of the Belgian model itself—and its place within the broader trajectory of Belgian planning. The conclusion reflects on the broader implications of the Belgian case for understanding the neoliberalization of planning infrastructures in Europe.
1. From rival to tool: How foresight scenarios were absorbed into macroeconomic modeling
Foresight scenarios are now central to global policymaking, as seen in the long-term emission projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yet, their role in socio-economic policymaking remains less explored. While some historical interactions between macroeconomic modeling and foresight scenarios have been documented, the conditions under which these approaches intersected, and the extent of their hybridization, remain open questions. This section examines how foresight scenarios and macroeconomic modeling were positioned as distinct yet occasionally overlapping tools in economic planning, shaped by institutional and epistemic tensions. By situating foresight scenarios within the broader transformation of planning expertise, it lays the groundwork for understanding how The Impossible Scenario functioned not just as a document but as a mechanism that reshaped economic modeling within Belgian planning and legitimized new policy orientations.
Foresight scenarios were developed at the RAND Corporation, a U.S. Cold War think tank that designed strategic tools for military and economic planning, as part of experiments with alternatives to traditional methods of prediction and planning (Andersson Reference Andersson2018). Scenarios were designed to address the perceived limits of individual rationality in decision-making observed in game theory experiments. They were conceived as “social technologies” helping to manage this irrationality by supporting the governance of collective decision-making processes (Ibid., chap. 5). Foresight scenarios supported not just the making of better plans or procedures, but also their enforceability. To achieve this, they embraced subjectivity and storytelling, preparing for the irrational and, to a certain extent, unplannable side of the future. Rather than predicting a single future, scenarios justified their relevance for present decision-making based on the inherent plurality and uncertainty of the future (Armatte Reference Armatte and Dahan2007). Their promise, in terms of intervention, was to assist decision-making through the construction of multiple plausible images of the future, making the (hypothetical) consequences of present choices tangible and actionable for decision-makers (Andersson Reference Andersson2018).
Nuclear strategist Herman Kahn was instrumental in shaping the theatrical elements of foresight scenarios and their evolution into economic and social technologies as they extended beyond RAND in the 1960s. Kahn framed scenarios, in contrast to plans, as ways to explore “a potentially unlimited series of probable and improbable futures—including, famously, the ‘unthinkable’” (Andersson Reference Andersson2018, 81). His use of extreme futures as a tool for shaping present decisions was first widely publicized through On Thermonuclear War (1960). After leaving RAND, Kahn popularized scenarios through the Hudson Institute, a think tank he founded in 1961, which marketed the scenario as a tool holding relevance for governments and businesses. Like other foresight techniques, scenarios have circulated across multinational corporations, international bureaucracies, and national planning commissions, adapting to diverse political and social contexts (Andersson and Keizer Reference Andersson and Keizer2014; Andersson Reference Andersson2019; Reference Andersson2020; Lenel Reference Lenel2023).
As Jenny Andersson argues, scenarios—and futurology more broadly—offered a different approach to planning: “not that of setting down quantitative and mainly economic objectives, but that of creating normative, desirable, and persuasive images of change” (Andersson Reference Andersson2018, 221). Ideals and practices that had shaped planning practices since the second world war, despite their many variations, typically operated within a fixed-year planning cycle (typically five years) structured around the Plan, a document outlining quantified objectives—either fixed or subject to annual adjustment—along with strategies to achieve them (Engerman Reference Engerman, Geyer and Tooze2015; Judt Reference Judt2006). The drafting of the plan was embedded within a broader socio-technical “planning infrastructure” (Halsmayer Reference Halsmayer2017; see also Evrard Reference Evrard2024),Footnote 5 which linked policymakers, institutions, mechanisms of coordination, data, and various policy devices, including (famously) Leontief input-output tables, economic forecasts, and large-scale macroeconomic models, with the aim of controlling and, in some cases, democratizing economic development.
Based on their distinct epistemology, foresight scenarios were initially framed as an alternative to quantitative macroeconomic modeling. This is evident in the 1971 “Unacceptable Scenario” by France’s Délégation à l’aménagement du territoire et à l’action régionale (DATAR), a public administration for land and urban planning.Footnote 6 Like Belgium’s later “Impossible Scenario,” it employed a setback scenario, depicting a dystopian but plausible future the authors hoped would not materialize in order to catalyze policy action.Footnote 7 Assuming the persistence of identified trends and the absence of regulation, this 163-page document mapped a trajectory (“cheminement”) from the present, progressively deteriorating toward a final vision of France in the year 2000, marked by deepening regional inequalities, urban overconcentration, and heightened nationalism. The “Unacceptable Scenario” eschewed direct recommendations, but its bleak outlook aligned with the DATAR’s broader advocacy for regionalization and redistribution between territories.
The “Unacceptable Scenario” relied on narrative techniques and the scripted depiction of processes that could appeal to the imagination to influence decision-makers. One such technique was the deliberate use of the present tense to immerse the reader in the unfolding trajectory, giving, as the text put it, “the impression of living ‘every moment of the future.’”Footnote 8 Its methodological foreword explicitly contrasted the scenario with more traditional models, seeking to guide public action by identifying “laws” derived from past experience, emphasizing its ability to foreground the “non-quantified” and the “abnormal.”Footnote 9 While the document acknowledged the potential for integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches, the hybridization between foresight scenarios and large macroeconomic modelling did not materialize in the French Plan until 1979 (Armatte Reference Armatte and Dahan2007, 80), following a period of uncertainty for both techniques.
The contrast between scenarios and macroeconomic modeling warrants further clarification. First, since Jan Tinbergen’s pioneering work (Dekker Reference Dekker2021), macroeconomic models have been used to evaluate policy alternatives by modifying one or more parameters based on different simulations with a same model (Hatem Reference Hatem1993, 305). While simulations can be combined with foresight scenarios (cf. supra), they do not necessarily do so, as they do not inherently generate internally coherent narratives of multiple possible futures. Second, research has highlighted the pervasiveness of narrative elements in economics (Morgan and Stapleford Reference Morgan and Stapleford2023). Likewise, recent historiography analyzing macroeconomic modeling as a practice (Stapleford Reference Stapleford2015) has underscored the role of the human judgment involved, for instance, in selecting exogenous hypotheses (Backhouse and Cherrier Reference Backhouse and Cherrier2019). Yet, while subjectivity and storytelling were integral to economic modeling in practice, they were neither erected as a methodological principle nor used as its main claim to intervention.
The Club of Rome, a transnational organization of experts and officials formed in close connection with the OECD and best known for its warnings about ecological limits to economic growth, sparked global debate with its 1972 report Limits to Growth (Meadows, Randers, and Behrens Reference Meadows, Meadows, Randers and Behrens1972), which also stands as one of the earliest and most influential uses of foresight scenarios. The report used system dynamics to simulate interactions between population, resources, and industrial output, presenting contrasted scenarios about the planet’s future. Specifically, it featured a setback scenario—warning of a “sudden and uncontrollable decline” if radical policy shifts were not made (ibid., 23)—alongside a zero-growth trajectory that it explicitly advocated for, promoted through a high-profile public campaign (Schmelzer Reference Schmelzer2016). While the Belgian Impossible Scenario also used contrasting scenarios, it differed from this earlier example in both purpose and methodology. Instead of advocating degrowth, it promoted structural reforms to restore growth. Moreover, the first report of the Club of Rome did not rely on economic modeling, favoring interdisciplinary system dynamics rooted in environmental science to simulate environmental and socio-economic interactions instead. It was rooted in another approach to foresight, close to the Stanford Research Institute and American environmental and radical movements (Hatem Reference Hatem1993, 82–83).
Economists criticized Limits to Growth for ignoring price mechanisms, prompting efforts to integrate foresight scenarios into macroeconomic modeling elsewhere. The OECD’s Interfutures report (1979) is an illustrative example that Maldague would later reference. It argued that growth was constrained by political and social factors, not physical limits (Schmelzer Reference Schmelzer2016, 318). Led by the French foresight consultant Jacques Lesourne, the study positioned scenarios as tools to manage global “interdependence,” a term capturing Western concerns over environmentalism and the rise of a New Economic International Order (NEIO) (Andersson Reference Andersson2019, 136). Interfutures merged foresight scenarios with econometric modeling, using foresight to define uncertainty variables requiring qualitative expert judgment, such as the collegial or fragmented relations between developed countries, based on which four scenarios were built. These scenarios were then fed into the Sarum econometric model, which generated macroeconomic projections for each case (Armatte Reference Armatte and Dahan2007, 80; Hatem Reference Hatem1993, 245–48). The report ultimately framed welfare state expansion and profit constraints as threats to market mechanisms, while calling for a coordinated Western response on the international public scene (Andersson Reference Andersson2019, 134).
The VIIIe Plan in France (1979) marked another key instance of hybridization between foresight scenarios and macroeconomic modeling, this time within national economic planning. As Michel Armatte notes, the Plan commissioner at the time, Michel Albert—whom Robert Maldague knew wellFootnote 10 —initiated this integration after being “alarmed” by simulations from the multisectoral dynamic model (DMS), which projected severe unemployment by 1985. In response, a complementary study was developed to map out the possible evolution (“cheminement”) of the labor market and identify policy interventions. Here, initial opposition between qualitative foresight and quantitative modeling gave way to “strong interpenetration,” with the model being used to explore analytical variants of the baseline scenario—testing over ninety different policy adjustments, each modifying a single economic parameter (Armatte Reference Armatte and Dahan2007, 80). A decade later, the Dutch Scanning the Future report (1992) further advanced this methodological convergence, embedding scenarios into long-term macroeconomic projections.
Despite these cases, the conditions under which planners hybridized these policy devices, their motivations, and their impact on planning remain underexplored—particularly in the descending phases of planning. The Belgian experience highlights how this hybridization emerged as a contingent response to the perceived failure of traditional planning methods: as planning infrastructures faced political and institutional constraints, Belgian planners strategically integrated scenario techniques into existing modeling practices—not as a predetermined shift, but as an adaptive strategy to influence policymakers. To understand why foresight scenarios became central to economic governance, the next section examines the crisis of Belgian planning, tracing how its dysfunctions created space for experimentation with alternative planning techniques and situating these within the Belgian institutional context.
2. The rise and crisis of Belgian planning
To explain why foresight scenarios, combined with macroeconomic modeling and informality, came to be seen as a more effective policy tool than the legally mandated five-year plans, it is necessary to first examine the planning infrastructure and crisis in which Belgian planning found itself, less than a decade after its creation.
The term “planning” only appeared in Belgian legislation in 1970 with the Framework Law on the organisation of planning and economic decentralization (hereafter Planning Act),Footnote 11 marking a symbolic turning point in the socio-economic governance of the country. Planning ideals had circulated in Belgian policymaking for decades, starting with Henri De Man’s Plan of Labor in 1933 (Dodge Reference Dodge1966; Dekker Reference Dekker2021; Milani Reference Milani2020). While De Man was discredited by his collaboration during the Nazi occupation, his ideas remained influential, particularly within socialist trade unions (FGTB), where figures like André Renard championed economic planning in Wallonia (Tilly Reference Tilly2004). They faced successful opposition, however, from the Christian-democratic right and the liberal pillar, whose aversion to planning extended to the quantitative data it needed. As a result, the country’s first national accounting data was compiled not by a government agency but by the sociology faculty of the Free University of Brussels, and it was not until 1959 that an Economic Programming Bureau was established. However, its influence remained limited to such an extent that, a decade later, all of the major economists associated with the Economic Programming Bureau, including the well-respected Albert baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, had departed (Buyst et al. Reference Buyst, Maes, Plasmeijer and Schoorl2005).
Planning thus started comparatively late in Belgium. Its institutionalization was politically negotiated as part of the first state reform, initiated in 1968, which set in motion the federalization of what was then a unitary country (Mabille Reference Mabille2011).Footnote 12 Typical of the exalted rhetoric of the early 1970s (Schmelzer Reference Schmelzer2016), this form of planning pledged to rejuvenate the conditions for growth, including its qualitative aspects (e.g. environment, living and work conditions, balance between territories), within a development model prioritizing full employment and promising to address regional imbalances. To achieve these goals, the Planning Act introduced new policy instruments and planning devices. Foremost among them was the establishment of a five-year plan as the cornerstone of socio-economic policymaking. This plan would set out the principal economic policy objectives for the coming five years, along with the strategies and key programs needed to achieve them and the financial resources required for their implementation.
Planning was positioned as both a technical and a democratic exercise. The Plan was designed to rationalize policymaking while maintaining political legitimacy through an extensive consultation process detailed in article 7 of the Planning Act (see Figure 1). Drawing from the French model, it mandated approval by Parliament, making it a legally binding document, after an intricate procedure that entailed many consultations, ensuring, for instance, representation from both trade unions and employer organizations.Footnote 13 To prevent expertise from overriding politics, the process was divided into two phases: first, the selection of broad policy options (also approved by Parliament), followed by the drafting of the final Plan. Both phases were informed by technical analysis from the newly created Planning Bureau (a third phase not represented on the figure below), which also communicated an “inventory of technically feasible choices” containing,Footnote 14 as its name indicates, the choices technically possible, leaving the political choices regarding the planning options to political actors.
Figure 1. The Planning procedure as conceived by the 1970 Planning Act. Source: Promotional leaflet “Het Planbureau en de Planning,” n.d., JH records, CCE and Planning Bureau Series, Box 200, KADOC Archives, 14–15.
The Planning Bureau¸ created in 1971 from the former Economic Programming Bureau, was the technical expert and secretariat of the Plan.Footnote 15 Institutionally, it was placed at the heart of this process (illustrated by figure 2), though its autonomy was a subject of debate. While social partners favored a strong independent institution,Footnote 16 the Bureau was placed under the joint authority of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Economic Affairs by the Planning act. While it had a right of initiative, the Bureau was not explicitly entitled to issue its independent reports. Its role was limited to preparing the Plan, not dictating its strategic choices. As explained in a widely distributed pedagogical guide,
In order to make a plan, you need a specialized organization, made up of the necessary technicians. This organization is the Planning Bureau. Let’s get this straight. It is not the Planning Bureau that makes the choices and therefore the Plan. It prepares the choices, … points out incompatibilities, proposes trade-offs. But it is the Nation itself that draws up ITS plan, according to democratic and decentralized procedures.Footnote 17
Figure 2. Institutional position of the Planning Bureau (in the early 1970s). Source: Promotional leaflet “Het Planbureau en de Planning,” n.d., JH records, CCE and Planning Bureau Series, Box 200, KADOC Archives, 10.
Maldague, Chief of Cabinet to the Prime Minister, became the first Planning Commissioner in 1971,Footnote 18 a function he held until 1991. The political and economic context he faced in this capacity was anything but conducive to planning as envisaged by the Planning Act. Since the mid-1970s, most of the corporatist institutions molded by the Planning process had ceased to function properly (Arcq Reference Arcq2014), in light of the polarization typical of a decade where rising unemployment and inflation went along with deepening disagreements over economic policy. Furthermore, the federalization process triggered intense political instability, with government coalitions lasting an average of just one year between 1968 and 1981 (Dumont and De Winter Reference Dumont and De Winter1999). This general conflict and instability directly affected planning: out of the three plans drafted, only the first (1971–1975) received parliamentary approval, and even then, approval came a year and a half after it was supposed to take effect (CRISP 1971).
The planning framework introduced in 1970 never fully functioned as intended, but by the late 1970s, its crisis was being discussed by planners themselves.Footnote 19 For Maldague, a turning point came with the failed recalculation of the second Plan (1978–1980).The center-left Tindemans IV government (June 1977–October 1978) had initially requested this recalculation of the draft Plan for the period 1975–1980, presented to the Chamber’s Economic Committee less than a month before the fall of the previous center right Tindemans III government.Footnote 20 Deteriorating economic conditions, and a political realignment that saw the Socialists replace the Liberals as the main partners in the Christian Democratic coalition, rendered both the objectives and the strategy of this plan obsolete.Footnote 21 Whereas the previous coalition had prioritized budgetary restraint and wage cost containment (while still keeping full employment as main objective)—facing strong union resistance that contributed to its fall—the Socialist wing of the Tindemans IV government pursued countercyclical spending through state-led industrial and employment policies (Mommen Reference Mommen1994).
The Planning Bureau completed its revised Plan in November 1977, but by the time it reached the Council of Ministers in March 1978, it was downgraded to a minor policy paper.Footnote 22 Prime Minister Leo Tindemans, deemed it “unrealistic” to continue updating the Plan, suggesting instead engaging with the preparation of the next plan (1981–1985).Footnote 23 Minister of Economic Affairs Willy Claes supported his point, while also voicing concern about “the document distributed, since it contains all kinds of hypotheses which he finds difficult to endorse.”Footnote 24 These objections reflected broader conflicts. Rather than integrating the revised Plan, the government’s Socialist ministers were already pursuing their own “new” industrial and employment policies outside the planning framework.Footnote 25 Earlier exchanges suggest that tensions extended to forecasting: while the government aimed to reduce unemployment to 150,000, the Bureau projected further increases, casting doubt on the feasibility of official policy goals.Footnote 26
After the fall of Tindemans IV, Maldague tried his luck with the new prime minister of a two-month-long tripartite transitional government (October–December 1978), Paul Vanden Boeynants, but met only irony and disinterest. A former collaborator, then a young macroeconomic modeler, later recalled that the encounter left a deep mark: “Maldague understood that if we kept going like this, we are going to shut down the Planning Bureau within two years.”Footnote 27 For Maldague, the setback was even more striking because he believed the Bureau had “played the game thoroughly.”Footnote 28 Its experts had meticulously budgeted policies and integrated the regional components required by the Planning Act. Central to this effort was RENA, the Bureau’s first large-scale macroeconomic model. Initially developed with the Center for Economic Studies (CES) at KU Leuven and the Department of Applied Economics (DULBEA) at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), RENA was later developed in-house by a modeling team led by Tanguy de Biolley and including Henri Bogaert—both of whom later contributed to The Impossible Scenario.Footnote 29
These technical achievements, however, did not translate into intervention. This was extensively discussed at the 1978 Congress of French-speaking Belgian Economists, which brought together academics and practitioners.Footnote 30 The problem, as Maldague framed it in his closing intervention, was not merely procedural, but fundamentally political and even “moral.”Footnote 31 The recalculation episode showed that planning had become the act of transient governments subjected to the vagaries of Belgian politics, rather than the Plan of a nation, as originally intended. Moreover, political pressures distorted planning objectives, intertwining scientific forecasting with political imperatives, leading to inflated promises detached from economic realities.Footnote 32 Yet, despite its limitations and an environment far from favorable to planning, Maldague insisted that planning remained “more necessary than ever” as a tool for medium-term consistency amid uncertainty.Footnote 33 To be more than “decorative”—a ritual where stakeholders, including the state, engaged selectively, endorsing aspects that suited them while avoiding binding commitments—planning needed to scale down its ambitions and adhere to them. It also required what he called a “revolution in mentalities,” since “the real problem of planning is that Belgians must first accept facing reality.”Footnote 34
In early 1979, as preparations for the 1981–1985 plan were underway, Maldague put forward concrete proposals for addressing the crisis of planning. His interventions before the Planning Commission—set up by the Central Economic Council (CCE) and the National Labor Council (CNT), two joint advisory bodies involved in the planning process—show how his diagnosis of the crisis and his proposed solutions foreshadowed his later actions with The Impossible Scenario. Maldague outlined two possible pathways for reforming Belgian planning. The first, echoing developments in Dutch Planning (Kayzel Reference Kayzel2019), emphasized the “truth-telling” function of planning expertise, which, according to Maldague, required a “right of impertinence.”Footnote 35 The second, closer to the French model, treated planning as a “political act,” meaning it should be integrated into “decision-making as it really functions in Belgium.”Footnote 36 While acknowledging their incompatibility, Maldague proposed applying the two approaches sequentially—with technical expertise guiding preparation and political considerations shaping execution.
Maldague’s second intervention situates the shift towards foresight scenarios undertaken with The Impossible Scenario within broader European debates about perceived planning failures and foresight methodologies. As the minutes indicate, Maldague called for a “necessary examination of conscience” regarding past planning experience, pointing to the relative success of Germany and Switzerland in managing inflation and employment without a national plan.Footnote 37 To address this “malaise,” according to him shared by other European planners, Maldague proposed extending the planning horizon beyond the usual five-year cycle and integrating foresight methods into the preparation of the Third Plan (1981–1985). In an era where the traditional aim of “reducing uncertainty” through the Plan seemed increasingly difficult, he proposed “identifying key future challenges” as a viable second-best function.Footnote 38 Rather than requiring “exhaustive futurological work,” he stressed that Belgium could build on the work already conducted within the OECD’s Interfutur group (combining macroeconomic modeling with foresight scenarios, as discussed in Section 1), which could “easily be used and adapted to suit Belgian specificities.”Footnote 39
By early 1979, however, most Belgian politicians were not speculating on long-term challenges but were consumed by short-term crisis management, as the broader political and economic crisis—of which planning was only one aspect—deepened. The nomination of Wilfried Martens as prime minister, forming in April 1979 the first of many governments, and Leo Tindemans’ maneuvering to secure the CVP presidency, triggered a clan war within the Flemish Christian Democratic Party (CVP) (De Ridder Reference De Ridder1991). Martens represented its labor wing, while Tindemans aligned with its capital wing, deepening factional tensions that critically shaped the future course of Belgian socio-economic policy given the pivotal position of the CVP in Belgian politics, which at the time determined the coalition’s socio-economic orientation through its choice of alliances (Delwit Reference Delwit2012, 19).
Regarding planning, the Martens I government agreement promised to reform the Planning Act within six months, but except for a temporary simplification of the planning procedure to a single phase, bypassing the Planning Options stage,Footnote 40 this reform never materialized.Footnote 41 Maldague, in fact, dismissed this prospect as a “legalistic temptation,” arguing that “the essential problems of planning concern first and foremost the very process of political decision-making in Belgium,” which would not be solved by a reform of the Planning Act.Footnote 42 The very survival of the Planning Bureau became a concern within organizations historically linked to the Christian Democratic Party, to which Maldague was close. For instance, in November 1979, Jef Houthuys, head of Belgium’s largest trade union (ACV), privately stressed the need to “find a good solution for planning and the Planning Bureau” expressing concern over the “far from positive attitude in recent years on the part of the Socialist Minister of Economic Affairs.”Footnote 43
Against this backdrop, The Impossible Scenario emerged not merely as a technical document, but an intervention in the face of institutional paralysis.
3. Reshuffling old methods: Contrasted scenarios in The Impossible Scenario
The Impossible Scenario combined macroeconomic modelling with scenario planning to construct a persuasive narrative of crisis and policy urgency. It presented two contrasting scenarios, both built using MARIBEL model: a dire setback scenario that lent its name to the document’s title, and a “feasible scenario” advocated by the authors for policy intervention. While the setback scenario painted a catastrophic future in the absence of intervention, the feasible scenario outlined a structured policy response, emphasizing fiscal stabilization and targeted investment. Examining both the content and making of these scenarios reveals the simultaneous malleability and resilience of Belgian planning infrastructure amid the crisis. The two scenarios framed the crisis—and its possible solutions—in fundamentally different ways. Yet their contrasting messages worked in tandem to convey a shared imperative: that radical change was necessary.
The setback scenario presented a plausible yet disastrous future: with deteriorating macroeconomic conditions following the second oil shock and the instability of the European Monetary System, preexisting fiscal and external imbalances were poised to escalate into what planners deemed an “impossible” scenario—not because it was implausible but because its consequences were politically and economically unacceptable. Its simulations showed that high unemployment and low growth would deepen “structural” fiscal imbalances, compounding the deficit effects of automatic stabilizers, described as “Keynesian” by the authors (Bogaert, de Biolley, and Maldague Reference Bogaert, de Biolley, Maldague, Steinherr and Weiserbs1987, 221). The potential outcomes, should this “impossible” scenario become reality, were presented as truly catastrophic—a stark departure from the earlier communications of the Planning Bureau. Without substantial policy changes, it was projected that the state’s net financing requirements could reach 12% by 1985, leading to the “collapse” of the Belgian Franc and jeopardizing the “survival” of the social security system—two national symbols (Ibid., 221).
The Impossible Scenario reframed planners’ earlier “warnings” in newly dramatic language (Ibid., 220). The macroeconomic part of the second plan (1976–1980) had highlighted concerns over the state budget deficit, the sustainability of the social security system, and long-term demographic trends, particularly the declining ratio of inactive to active workers. It emphasized “structural” asymmetry: public revenues were sensitive to economic cycles, while expenditures—particularly social security obligations—exhibited inflexibility. The Impossible Scenario now integrated this interaction between short- and long-term dynamics and the growth rate, highlighting a “cumulative impact” that would escalate without intervention (Ibid., 221). Moreover, when speaking about The Impossible Scenario, its authors frequently employed catastrophizing language to describe the setback scenario it presented, featuring terms including “implosion,” “explosion,” “catastrophe,” and “economic horror” (Maldague 1991).
Although the setback scenario received more attention, the “possible scenario” also warrants examination, as it aligned with the authors’ policy preferences. Arguing that structural “imbalances” required more than “isolated therapy” (Maldague Reference Maldague1981, 313), Belgian planners proposed a cohesive medium-term “voluntarist strategy” (Bogaert, de Biolley, and Maldague Reference Bogaert, de Biolley, Maldague, Steinherr and Weiserbs1987, 223) combining gradual reforms to “regain control” over the budget with supply-side reforms to improve the international competitiveness of Belgian firms. While acknowledging that primary surpluses or significant interest rate reductions could theoretically slow what they termed the “snowball effect of public debt,” they deemed such outcomes unlikely given Belgium’s fiscal trajectory and monetary constraints. Furthermore, they cautioned against overly radical, and therefore deflationary, policies that could erode tax revenues (Bogaert, de Biolley, and Maldague Reference Bogaert, de Biolley, Maldague, Steinherr and Weiserbs1987, 227). Their approach thus diverged from later supply-side “Reaganomics” and “expansionary austerity” (Blyth Reference Blyth2015; Helgadóttir Reference Helgadóttir2016).
The “possible scenario” also defied familiar historiographical “either/or” dichotomy of strict supply-side and purely demand-side approaches. Its authors rejected usual demand-oriented policies, citing weak fiscal multipliers and the procyclical effect of wages-based social security financing. Yet they viewed fiscal stabilization not as an end but as a prerequisite for improving Belgium’s financial stability and international competitiveness, while reallocating resources for investment within budget constraints. Rather than calling for across-the-board spending cuts, the planners advocated a selective “re-adjustment of the shares of value added from labor to capital, and a re-targeting of expenditure in favor of investment and exports” (Bogaert, de Biolley, and Maldague Reference Bogaert, de Biolley, Maldague, Steinherr and Weiserbs1987, 223). The scenario thereby anticipates later distinctions between “productive” and “non-productive” public spending (Lepont Reference Lepont2023), but its historically closer analogue lies in “old Keynesian” responses to critique targeting their modelling practices and policy advice through the 1970s (Goutsmedt et al. Reference Goutsmedt, Pinzón-Fuchs, Renault and Sergi2019; Renault Reference Renault2020).Footnote 44
Both the setback and feasible scenarios were constructed using the MARIBEL, a new macroeconomic model developed in-house by the Planning Bureau, building on its previous experience with RENA.Footnote 45 MARIBEL was a neoclassical growth model (Halsmayer Reference Halsmayer2024), designed to support rapid, policy-oriented simulations over the short to medium term (one to five years). Technically, it provided annual projections over a five-year horizon and included approximately 350 endogenous and sixty exogenous variables. Compared to RENA and to SERENA, the other model developed in parallel to Maribel, it contained neither regional, or sectoral disaggregation.Footnote 46 Its architecture—summarized in a 1979 Planning Bureau note and visualized in Figure 3—comprised several interlinked “blocks,” though the note emphasizes that representing the model posed greater challenges than earlier models. This was due not only to MARIBEL’s larger scale but also to its treatment of many variables as “medium-term trends … around which short-period disturbances occur”,Footnote 47 whose lagged effects are not fully captured in the diagram.
Figure 3. Graphical representation of the Maribel model. The diagram outlines the main components of the MARIBEL model including the labor market (“marché du travail”), enterprise capacity (“capacité des entreprises”), effective demand and GDP (“PNB - demande effective”), monetary sector (“bloc monétaire”), external sector (“bloc extérieur”), wages and labor costs (“coûts salariaux”) and domestic prices (“prix intérieurs”). Source : De Falleur, Richard, “Dossier Maribel: Essai de Représentation Graphique des Principales Relations du Modèle Maribel,” June 4, 1979, PB Records, GD Series, Box 43, NAB, 5.
Compared to RENA, MARIBEL also expanded its structural components. It endogenized supply-side mechanisms, such as investment profitability and wage costs, alongside monetary and external constraints, while retaining a demand-driven core, in which income dynamics and effective demand determined economic activity. Additionally, it comprehensively modeled the public sector and included a detailed monetary framework, allowing for a more explicit analysis of interest rates, public debt, and financial linkages within the Belgian economy. Furthermore, it also relied on expert-defined exogenous variables which, as described below, are crucial to understanding the convergence of foresight and macroeconomic modeling (Hatem Reference Hatem1993, 308).
These refinements reflected broader methodological evolution in large macroeconomic modeling. In response to critiques of demand-driven models and forecasting errors following the oil shock, Belgian modelers expanded the scope and complexity of MARIBEL while preserving “sediments of earlier research” (Halsmayer Reference Halsmayer2017, 180). Like other European macroeconomists resisting purely microfounded, market-clearing models (Renault Reference Renault2020), they opted for a structural approach, integrating both medium-term economic mechanisms and short-term fluctuations. For instance, private investment was modeled as demand-driven in the long run (with multiplier effects) but profit-driven in the short run. Similarly, private consumption followed Friedman’s permanent income hypothesis, meaning it responded more to lifetime income expectations than to short-term fluctuations, thus making income-support policies less impactful on overall demand.
To understand the entanglement of words and numbers at this turning point for Belgian economic planning, it is important to see how some forecasts did more than predict. An internal technical note—addressed to the Bureau’s direction-level internal committee—makes this logic explicit as it reflected on the “nature of the baseline projections.”Footnote 48 The macroeconomic modelers who authored the note emphasized that:
the so-called “baseline” projection is clearly not intended to foreshadow the projection that will eventually be associated with the final plan, nor even to constitute a genuinely predictive forecast. … Rather, the baseline projection serves as an instrument for identifying macroeconomic problems likely to arise … if the authorities only pursue non-voluntarist policies.Footnote 49
This passage echoes the logic of foresight scenarios examined in Section 1, particularly the use of setback scenarios as tools not for prediction, but for eliciting a reaction from policy makers in the context of a crisis of planning. The baseline projection laid out a deliberately adverse trajectory—designed “to prompt political responses not factored into the launch of the projection.”Footnote 50 More than a warning, it was a call to action that embedded forecasting within the planning process itself by illustrating “a development that is hopefully unlikely, at least in part, provided the medium-term planning process is effective.”Footnote 51
Practically, this strategic use of foresight scenarios impacted the logic behind the selection of exogenous variables when using the MARIBEL-based projections, including those involved in the preparation of the Third Plan and, subsequently, The Impossible Scenario. Regarding the choice of starting hypotheses (hypothèses d’amorçage), planners thus made a distinction between those relating to variables which “the Belgian authorities clearly cannot influence” (the international environment, private behavior) and the others (public finances, public regulation).Footnote 52 In the first case, the choice was made based on “the hypotheses judged most likely to be forecast,” whereas in the second case, the choice was made on the basis of assumptions “which postulate the absence of voluntary reorientation of public action.”Footnote 53 The differentiation between variables outside Belgian control (like the international context) and those amenable to policy intervention underscores a strategic use of foresight scenarios to prompt policy change.
4. The Impossible Scenario as a political moment
By integrating foresight scenario techniques into preexisting macroeconomic modeling practices, including through the selection of exogenous parameters, planners positioned themselves as active participants in shaping policy debates. How did The Impossible Scenario gain traction in Belgian politics despite never being officially released? What role, if any, did it play in bureaucratic struggles over planning, and how did it shape broader socio-economic changes?
Answering these questions requires situating the document within a period of profound instability. The early 1980s were a time of economic crisis in Belgium (like elsewhere), but also of ongoing factional struggles within the CVP and negotiations over a new state reform. Until December 1981, the Socialists—whose complex ties to the Bureau du Plan have been discussed—remained in power. Yet, by 1980, elites, including those historically aligned with the CVP’s labor wing, were working to reorient socio-economic policy towards the center-right, an effort in which Maldague participated (De Ridder Reference De Ridder1991). This culminated in December 1981, when Martens formed his fifth government, a coalition of Christian-Democrat and liberal parties that initiated a paradigmatic shift towards neoliberalism in Belgium (Evrard Reference Evrard, Piron and Evrard2023).
This political realignment was central to the trajectory of The Impossible Scenario. While the document was never officially released, its timing and message aligned with the broader informal politics that supported a center-right turn. At the same time, the circulation of The Impossible Scenario marked a turning point in Belgian planning, as the Planning Bureau adapted to a new political landscape by redefining its role, asserting its autonomy, and reshaping its expertise to remain influential in policymaking. This section therefore examines the production of the document within the Planning Bureau, its dissemination among Belgian socio-political elites and its legacy for Belgian planning.
4.1. Inside the Bureau: A strategic break from tradition
Internally, The Impossible Scenario emerged from a contested process within the Planning Bureau. Unlike previous reports, it was entirely Maldague’s personal initiative, bypassing the government and the actors designated by the Planning Act. He also sidelined internal negotiations within the Bureau, which—like many state bureaucracies in Belgium (Brans, De Visscher, and Vancoppenolle Reference Brans, De Visscher and Vancoppenolle2006)—represented the country’s main political tendencies. His unilateral approach reflected both a deliberate rejection of internal compromise and a bold assertion of independence from government oversight. As Maldague later recalled, “we were taking risks. If I had had to negotiate this inside the whole Planning Bureau, it would have been watered down. It was a burning pamphlet, that’s what it was. And I wanted to launch the burning pamphlet without consulting everybody.”Footnote 54
The Impossible Scenario was produced in utmost secrecy by a small team of macroeconomic modelers, specifically Tanguy de Biolley and Henri Bogaert, both under Maldague. Although not a modeler himself, Maldague closely followed the development of macroeconomic modeling within the Bureau.Footnote 55 De Biolley, recruited by Maldague to develop macroeconomic expertise within the Bureau, led the new macroeconomic modeling team where Bogaert also worked.Footnote 56 While neither de Biolley nor Bogaert saw themselves as political actors, their educational and professional trajectories shaped how they were perceived. Their studies at the Catholic University of Namur associated them, in the eyes of others, with Christian Democracy in Belgian society, while de Biolley’s PhD, written under the supervision of Jean Paelinck at Erasmus University Rotterdam, embedded him in an international macroeconomic modeling network. Bogaert, for his part, later described himself as “Keynesian,” emphasizing that this was something “we never ceased to be.”Footnote 57
Despite its secrecy, not everything about The Impossible Scenario was a rupture. It leveraged existing macroeconomic work from the Third Plan (1980–1985), suggesting that the real conflict was not over its economic claims, but over its framing and radical tone.Footnote 58 However, its circulation provoked controversy within the Bureau, particularly among other modeling teams. The group working on the SERENA model, a multisectoral model developed alongside MARIBEL, expressed disappointment over the absence of internal debate—despite recognizing that their own projections largely aligned with those presented in the scenario’s findings, albeit with “gradational differences.”Footnote 59 The tensions surrounding The Impossible Scenario were not just about macroeconomic modeling, but about how economic expertise mobilized itself to shape political narratives. With The Impossible Scenario, the Plan Commissioner was deviating from the ratio legis of the Planning Act, which had been designed to keep the Planning Bureau subordinate to democratic politics, to taking position in it.
4.2. Circulating influence: How The Impossible Scenario shaped policy debates
While The Impossible Scenario was contested within the Bureau, it gained traction among Belgian socio-political elites, circulating discreetly rather than being widely printed or distributed.Footnote 60 Maldague—himself a former chief of staff to three Christian Social prime ministers—leveraged his personal networks to ensure its reach. The document resonated particularly with would-be reformers in the fragmented Belgian political landscape, who used it to reinforce the urgency of economic restructuring. According to Maldague, the report garnered “mixed reactions.”Footnote 61 While some outsiders may have been disturbed, the main “partners” of the Bureau, including those in the government and the governor of the national bank, appreciated the initiative that “was giving a ‘technocratic’ but reputedly permanent guarantee to feelings they already had about the seriousness of the Belgian situation, while outlining some solutions.”Footnote 62
By the mid-1980s, The Impossible Scenario was publicly cited by members of the Christian-democrat right wing, as part of ongoing debates about fiscal consolidation in the fragile third Martens government (May–October 1980). This was also the first government formally designating “Planning” as part of a minister’s purview.Footnote 63 On July 17, 1980, José Desmaret, PSC Minister of Planning and Scientific Policy of the third Martens Government, referenced it in a press conference on the third plan, warning that “The diagnosis is unanimous. Unless we take proactive and courageous action to turn our economy around, the country will be faced with The Impossible Scenario described by the Bureau du Plan.”Footnote 64 His proposed solution—zero growth in public spending and enhancing production conditions—aligned with the Planning Bureau while rejecting demand stimulation.
4.3. The Planning Bureau after 1981: Expertise, autonomy, and evolution
The formation of the Martens-Gol government in December 1981 brought these debates about the future of the Belgian political economy to a close, at least within the government, whose policies echoed The Impossible Scenario: supply-side adjustments, monetary stabilization, and fiscal consolidation (Evrard Reference Evrard, Piron and Evrard2023). Though no formal Plan was in sight, the Planning Bureau was no longer sidelined. It supported the government’s capacity to implement its program while securing its own institutional relevance, contributing to a broader resilience but also a redeployment of the infrastructure set by the Planning Act. As the remainder of this section illustrates, the Bureau adapted to this new environment by making its expertise useful in new ways to the Martens-Gol government, while reasserting its autonomy from it.
The Planning Bureau quickly adapted to the new political landscape by leveraging its macroeconomic modeling expertise to support controversial policy decisions. This began with the 8.5% devaluation of the Belgian franc within the European Monetary System in February 1982. The devaluation was a cornerstone of the new government’s agenda to restore competitiveness and monetary stability (Evrard Reference Evrard, Piron and Evrard2023). It was conceived as a one-time adjustment, accompanied by wage freezes, governance by special powers, which granted the government exceptional legislative authority (Dehousse Reference Dehousse1984),Footnote 65 and a firm commitment to monetary discipline (Piron and Evrard Reference Piron, Evrard, Piron and Evrard2023). Yet the measure was highly contested, particularly by the National Bank of Belgium (NBB), which defended an uncompromising stance. In this context, the Planning Bureau’s ability to simulate macroeconomic scenarios became an asset. Once again in the highest secrecy, the authors of The Impossible Scenario provided expertise that helped visualize a coherent post-devaluation economic program. Together with the support of the IMF, this allowed the government to bypass the NBB and assert the credibility of its devaluation during negotiations with European partners (Evrard Reference Evrard2024).
Beyond the devaluation, the Bureau further reinforced its relevance by developing new macroeconomic scenarios that aligned with the government’s economic priorities. In this regard, the Planning Bureau worked particularly well with Philippe Maystadt, the young minister of budget, scientific policy and planning of the Martens V government (and later president of the European Investment Bank), situated at the left of the Christian-Democrat pillar. This resulted, in 1984, in the publication of another contrasted scenario, this time supported by the minister in charge.Footnote 66 Furthermore, Grégoire Brouhns, Chief of Cabinet to Maystadt, also cited The Impossible Scenario during the annual “budget chronicles” presented to parliament between 1982 and 1984.Footnote 67 These chronicles defended the budgetary policy of the government, which at the time made extensive use of special powers (Dehousse Reference Dehousse1984; Yernault Reference Yernault2001).
At the same time, the Bureau sought to reaffirm its autonomy by strengthening its links with the social partners, thereby avoiding being tied solely to government support. Again supported by Maystadt, the Planning Bureau reasserted its connections with social partners. On March 14, 1983, Maldague and macroeconomic modelers presented a “winter-autumn reference projection,” setting a precedent for biannual baseline projection presentations to social partners.Footnote 68 This practice, part of budget preparation, introduced “rolling planning,” where plans are regularly updated instead of sticking to a “fixed” five-year schedule. When discussing the projection itself, social partners also asked the Planning Bureau to explore alternative scenarios. The same month, the Planning Bureau and the “National Consultative Committee” (comprised of the CCE and CNT) signed a “cooperation protocol” to foster dialogue and modernize the partnership based on new planning practices.Footnote 69
Finally, the Bureau continued to consolidate its independent voice, while its new role was gradually entrenched in policy-making procedures. This evolution was marked by the consolidation of the practice of “independent” publication, inspired by The Impossible Scenario, through the introduction of the “Planning Papers” which were first released in June 1983. Maldague continued to take independent public positions. For instance, in anticipation of the socialists’ return to power after the second center-right Martens government (1985–1987), Maldague (Reference Maldague1988) echoed arguments similar to those found in The Impossible Scenario during a conference hosted by the Royal Society for Political Economy.
After more than a decade of experimentation, the revamped role of the planning bureau was officially recognized in 1994, as part of a comprehensive reform of the statistical and economic forecasting apparatus of the federal government.Footnote 70 This recognition occurred two years after Bogaert, a young macroeconomist who contributed to the development of the figures contained by The Impossible Scenario, took over the position of Plan Commissioner.
5. Conclusion
At the farewell ceremony for Robert Maldague’s retirement in 1991, Jacques Delors praised his “longevity” as Plan Commissioner,Footnote 71 contrasting his tenure with the more volatile fate of his French counterparts—a total of six French Plan Commissioners who succeeded one another over the same period. Under Maldague, the Planning Bureau had remained “a key macroeconomic and demographic reference point—a stable magnetic compass amid so much uncertainty.”Footnote 72 He described its role as fulfilling “this crucial warning function of planning within a market economy: helping to raise collective awareness of risks; exposing misconceptions and dispelling paralyzing fears; and making negotiation for change possible, or at the very least, facilitating it by identifying opportunities and possibilities.”Footnote 73 From the perspective of Maldague and Delors, planning had not simply faded away, but had been redefined. Delors’ reflection thereby encapsulates a more general argument proposed based on the Belgian case, namely that planning was not abandoned with the rise of neoliberalism but redefined—no longer producing formal plans but shaping economic governance through expertise.
To deepen our understanding of how planning was redefined rather than abandoned, this article examined the role of foresight techniques in the neoliberalization of planning infrastructures, focusing on the making and circulation of The Impossible Scenario. Drawing on new archival sources and in-depth interviews with contemporary protagonists, it analyzed how The Impossible Scenario played a pivotal role in redeploying Belgian planning during a critical juncture (Capoccia and Kelemen Reference Capoccia and Kelemen2007), highlighting its groundbreaking use of foresight scenarios and macroeconomic modeling. The article highlighted that the authors of The Impossible Scenario experimented with foresight scenarios as part of a broader attempt to restore the capacity of the Planning Bureau to intervene in Belgian policymaking during a moment of generalized crisis. They did so precisely by owning the “crisis of planning” as “a moment of transformation” (Hay Reference Hay1999, 317). The Impossible Scenario provided crisis narratives that contributed to legitimizing contested changes in Belgian politics, while also providing a first experiment in redirecting the meaning and resources of Belgian planning towards new goals.
Reconstructing the transformations of the Belgian planning infrastructure before and after The Impossible Scenario makes visible how planners sought to restore their capacity for intervention by adapting their tools and methods, while also showing how their agency became intertwined with a broader coalition-building effort that extended beyond planning itself. Maldague, in particular, emerges as a “mutualistic symbiont” (Mahoney and Thelen Reference Mahoney and Ann Thelen2010)—an actor driving significant change while seeking to preserve an existing institution, even if it meant bypassing its traditional rules and goals. Specifically, it argues that, in response to this crisis of planning, Maldague strategically advanced one interpretation (over others) of Belgium’s broader moment of crisis through The Impossible Scenario. By portraying a catastrophic future, scenarios amplified an already widespread sense of crisis among Belgian elites during a critical juncture, legitimizing certain policy choices while marginalizing others. In doing so, they contributed to a broader reshaping planning’s political function, ultimately legitimizing contested policy change.
Taking these points together, this article offers two main contributions to the existing literature. The first is conceptual. Besides the case itself, this article contributes to the current literature through its conceptualization of planning as a flexible infrastructure amenable to empirical investigation. To do so, I build on the work of Verena Halsmayer (Reference Halsmayer2017), who proposed the concept of planning infrastructures to explain the persistence of macroeconomic modeling through the case of Leif Johansen’s multisectoral growth model in Norwegian planning. Extending this approach, I shift the focus from modeling practices to the planning infrastructures themselves, showing how the Belgian Planning Bureau was not merely subjected to neoliberalization but actively participated in and mediated this transformation. It was both neoliberalized and neoliberalizing. The article thereby contributes to the growing historiography that moves beyond the binary of planning as either a “glorious past” or an abandoned ideal (Bockman Reference Bockman2011; Kayzel Reference Kayzel2019; Warlouzet Reference Warlouzet, Segers and Van Hecke2023), demonstrating, instead, how reformers within planning infrastructures shaped neoliberalization processes.
Second, within this broader argument, this article also advances our understanding of the role of foresight scenarios in the neoliberalization of Western planning infrastructures through the 1970s and 1980s. Specifically, it proposes that foresight scenarios were used—in concert with macroeconomic modelling, the historic policy device for which the Planning Bureau became known and in which it had invested so much—to restore the capacity of Belgian planning to intervene at a time of crisis. Its effect, together with the broader evolution of Belgian planning, was to change the object of intervention, the very thing that planning was meant to control, from the economy to the Belgian society and state. Concurring, on that point, with earlier analysis (Andersson and Prat Reference Andersson and Prat2015; Bezes Reference Bezes2009), the article showed how this changing political meaning of planning operated through the technicalities of the Belgian planning infrastructure, including in the use of foresight scenarios, their modeling practices, and their use of language.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Verena Halsmayer, Eric Hounshell, Aurélien Goutsmedt, Francesco Sergi, Matthias Thiemann, Giovanni Bernardini, Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol, as well as the participants of the “Worlds of Management” workshop held in Vienna in 2022, especially Katharina Kreuder-Sonnen and Lukas Becht, and of the author’s workshop held in Zurich in 2023, for their generous comments on earlier drafts. I also thank the two anonymous reviewers, as well as Anna Echterhölter and Thom Rofé, for their careful reading and suggestions.
Competing interests
The author declares none.
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Zoé Evrard holds a PhD in political science from Sciences Po Paris, where she defended her dissertation on the redeployment of socio-economic planning in Belgium within the country’s negotiated trajectory of neoliberalization. She is currently developing a new research project that extends this work to the European level and has also conducted research on the new European investor state and more generally on Belgian neoliberalism. Publications on the topic include the book she coordinated with Damien Piron, Le(s) néolibéralisme(s) en Belgique: Le(s) néolibéralisme(s) en Belgique. Cadre macroéconomique, applications sectorielles et formes de resistance.
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